Bongbong makes it to Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people

PHILIPPINE President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. Made it to

100 most influential people this year due to his efforts to oppose Chinese aggression in the South China Sea.

“Bongbong’s desire to rehabilitate the Marcos name has resulted in other shifts,” according to Time. “He brought technocrats back into government, steadied the post — pandemic economy and elevated the Philippines on the world stage.”

Time said Bongbong’s rise to the Philippine presidency in 2022 stemmed from efforts to whitewash his family legacy “through clever manipulation of social media.”

His dictator father plundered billions of dollars from state coffers and stood accused of grievous human rights violations until his ouster in 1986, it said.

“Bongbong has stood steadfast against Chinese aggression in the disputed South China Sea and bolstered his nation’s alliance with the US,” Time said. “Many problems persist, including extrajudicial killings and journalists routinely attacked. But by trying to repair his family name, Bongbong may reshape his country too.”

TIME’s 100 most influential list, first published in 1999, included artists, icons, titans, leaders, innovators and pioneers.

Taiwan President-elect William Lai Ching-te and Argentine President Javier Gerardo Milei were also on the list.

The Marcoses have been accused of living lavishly in the Philippine presidential palace while Filipinos suffered from a collapsing economy.

More than 70,000 were jailed, about 34,000 were tortured and more than 3,000 people died during the martial rule of his father, the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr., according to Amnesty International.

A popular street uprising toppled the Marcos regime in February 1986 and sent him and his family into exile in the United States.

The elder Marcos accumulated ill-gotten wealth of as much as $10 billion (P572 billion), according to government estimates, earning him a Guiness World Record for the “greatest robbery of a government.”

“Despite geopolitical tensions and hurdles posed by the COVID-19 (coronavirus-2019) pandemic, President Marcos has elevated the Philippines on the world state and contributed to regional stability, notably in the IndoPacific region,” the Presidential Communications Office said in a statement. —