The return of the notorious Marcos family may have surprised many outsiders. At that time, the Marcoses were suspected of embezzling tens of billions of dollars in wealth from the country and lived a staggeringly luxurious life.

Philippines Bongbong Marcos, the son of the former dictator, teamed up with Sara Duterte, the daughter of current President Duterte, to run in this year's sixth election, and both of them won the election through "strong cooperation". The return of the notorious Marcos family may have surprised many outsiders. At that time, the Marcoses were suspected of embezzling tens of billions of dollars in wealth from the country and lived a staggeringly luxurious life. Marcos Jr. has now successfully cleared his name and was elected president with extremely high public opinion. What is he relying on?

The Philippines was under martial law for most of the 21-year rule of his father, Ferdinand Marcos. The president's annual salary is less than US$10,000, and his mother Imelda Marcos's salary as a minister in the government is even less, which is completely out of proportion to the family's luxurious life. It is said that she loved high-end brands such as Christian Dior and Gucci. At that time, she ordered 10 pairs of shoes every week. Her collection of 3,000 pairs of shoes has long been a well-known allusion and has become a symbol of luxury for the Marcos family.

However, compared to the couple’s collection of assets around the world, including real estate, jewelry, art, stocks, etc., Imelda’s shoes are just the tip of the iceberg. In 1986, Marcos was overthrown in the "People Power" revolution, when hundreds of thousands of Filipinos occupied the streets of the capital, Manila, and four days of protests forced Marcos to step down. Exiled to Hawaii. Corazon Aquino, the widow of assassinated opposition leader Benigno Aquino, took over.

* Note: In 1983, Marcos’ years of abstinence and corruption had led to boiling public resentment. His long-term political rival, democratic senator Benigno Simeon “Ninoy” Aquino (Benigno Simeon “Ninoy” Aquino, namely Aquino II was shot dead on the tarmac of Manila airport after years of exile, sparking a wave of protests that, with the support of the military, finally forced Marcos to overthrow three years later.

Despite being in exile in Hawaii, the Marcos family still retained the strongest foundation for "returning to the dynasty": huge wealth and connections. After the fall of the Marcos regime, Filipinos オ can get a real glimpse into the scale of the family's illegal wealth from the national treasury, which is estimated to be as high as 13.5 billion US dollars - this includes foreign aid to the Philippines, World Bank loans, Large corporate takeovers or lucrative bribes paid by companies to obtain government contracts.

At that time, U.S. President Ronald Reagan urged Marcos to go into exile and ensured that his family would be granted asylum in the United States. It was reported that the U.S. Air Force plane that took the Marcos family to Hawaii at that time also carried six amounts of cash, jewelry, Gold, art, weapons and contracts for a large number of overseas properties filled 300 crates. Marcos died of illness in Honolulu in 1989. However, more than 30 years later, most of the hidden wealth is still missing, and some have been subject to legal proceedings. It is estimated that only a third of the Marcos family's ill-gotten gains have been recovered, with some obtained through litigation and some returned to the Philippines.

By 1991, the Marcos family was allowed to return to the Philippines. In the end, none of the many crimes that Imelda was charged with sent her to jail. On the contrary, she never intended to give up her husband's political legacy, nor did she show any remorse for what they had done. Imelda ran for president twice more. Although she was not elected, she successfully entered the Congress with strong support. As the couple's only son, "Bang Bang" Marcos is the family's greatest hope for return. Filmmaker Auren Greenfield's 2019 documentary "The Kingmaker" also focused on Imelda's efforts to advance her son's political career. When Marcos Jr. talked about his mother in 2015, he said: She has wanted me to become president since I was 3 years old.

He even said in 2006: I just want to do business and be a person who lives for myself. I naively thought this was possible. I don't know why some people want to be politicians, but I personally have no choice. Although the son's qualifications were average, and it was revealed that he had not completed six degrees from Oxford University and Sixth School from Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, it did not hinder Marcos Jr.'s political career from soaring.

In fact, since the Marcos family returned to the Philippines in the 1990s, they have carefully transformed their image and cleverly distanced themselves from their father's evil deeds, making Filipinos think that "Bangbang is different from his father." On the one hand, some people have inherited decades of support for the family.

In the curriculum of Philippine public schools, there is very little space about the Marcos dictatorship. Filipinos born after 1986 have no personal impression of the dictatorship in the past. As a country with a young population, Marcos Jr.’s election situation is relatively favorable. As for the older generation of Filipinos, they are surprisingly dependent on the "Marcos family", including the northern region where the Marcos family comes from, and the eastern Leyte province (しeyte) where Imelda comes from. dividend.

Marcos Jr. has never apologized for the accusations about his father. He has denied all stigmas and has not shied away from emphasizing the "good aspects" of his father's political legacy, including large-scale construction projects, oil price subsidies, and energy policies. He also vowed to restart his father's political legacy. The US$2.2 billion Bataan Nuclear Power Plant project has introduced nuclear energy to the country and restored coal-fired power generation. We need to develop nuclear power. Don't politicize things. Let me reiterate again, everything follows science.

He said: Little Marcos' civilized, rational, dignified and people-friendly image, coupled with the warm appearance of a family of five, allowed him to inherit the name "Marcus" in a low-key manner, but it highlighted a completely different image from his father. Is this whitewashing project spanning more than 30 years a model for global political families?