reporter Wang Xiaoying
html On May 9, Philippines ushered in national and local elections. Preliminary statistics show that, as widely predicted, the "second generation president" combination won - Ferdinand Marcos was elected president without any suspense, and Sarah Duterte was elected vice president. The rates exceeded 55%. The two are respectively the son of the late former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and the daughter of the current President of the Philippines Duterte. From the president's son who fled overseas with his father to being elected president in a landslide, what kind of person is Marcos Jr.?
Marcos Jr. (left) and Sarah
The political family is his "black spot"
This Philippine election is very lively. There are 10 candidates participating in the presidential election alone, including Marcos Jr., the son of the former president, The current Vice President Robredo, the "Boxing Champion" and Senator Pacquiao, the mayor of the capital Manila Domagoso... However, at the end of April this year, Masco surpassed the others by a large margin in the polls. The candidate almost sealed the victory in advance. At that time, his support rate was around 56%, more than 30 percentage points ahead of Robredo, who came in second. In the 2016 election, Marcos narrowly lost to Robredo when running for vice president.
Masco's popularity is not due to his political family, but to his activeness on social media. Instead, his father and family became ammunition for his opponent Robredo to attack him. Ferdinand Marcos, the father of Marcos Jr., was elected president of the Philippines in 1965. He implemented high-pressure policies during his term, and received mixed reviews in the Philippines. Marcos's mother Imelda was a singer when she was young, ran for "Miss Manila", and was elected to the House of Representatives. She was known as the "Iron Butterfly" in Philippine politics and was criticized by the outside world for her excessive luxury. .
Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda
Marcos Jr. is 65 years old, nicknamed "Bang Bang" - his video vlog name is "Bang Bang Marcos". When he was born, Marcos Sr. was still a member of the Philippine Congress and was later elected to the Senate. Marcos Sr. went to college and got excellent grades, but he really became famous in the military. He joined the U.S.-Philippine Allied Forces in 1941 and served as the military judge of the Second Division of the Philippine Army. He was a famous "anti-Japanese hero" in the Philippines. In 1945, he was appointed administrator of the eight provinces of Northern Luzon by U.S. General MacArthur and was promoted to colonel.
After the end of World War II , the Philippines became independent. Marcos Sr. served as President Manuel Roxas's secretary and was later elected to the Assembly. In December 1965, he was elected President of the Philippines, re-elected in 1969, and served as Prime Minister in 1978. In 1981, he was elected president for the third time.
Marcos Sr. has been in charge of the Philippines for more than 20 years and has had a great influence on the country and is also controversial. During his tenure, the Philippines achieved significant development in all aspects and entered a "golden age." However, he was also criticized for suppressing dissidents, military control , and corruption and vote-buying. Finally, in 1986, he triggered large-scale public protests due to electoral fraud, and the Marcos family, including Marcos Jr., went into exile in Hawaii, the United States.
Ferdinand Marcos
It is said that after his family fled to Hawaii, people broke into the Philippine Presidential Palace Malacañang Palace and found 2,500 tops, 3,500 pairs of pants, 2,700 pairs of shoes, etc. of Imelda in the basement. All kinds of clothes, shoes and hats, the luxurious life is shocking. To this day, there is still a museum in Marikina, a city in the northern Philippines, which displays 800 pairs of Imelda's shoes.
When Marcos Sr. died in Hawaii in 1989, only Marcos Jr. was by his side. Even after his death, Marcos Sr.'s body was not allowed to be returned to the Philippines for burial. It was not until the Philippine Supreme Court made a ruling in 2016 that the remains of Marcos Sr. could be buried in his hometown.
From "Spoiled Child" to "Prince's Revenge"
Born in such a political family, little Marcos was destined to enter the political arena. He spent the first half of his life under the protection of his father. He moved into the presidential palace with his parents since he was a child, and received excellent care in all aspects.Recalling his childhood, little Marcos once said in an interview with the Philippine media, "I was just a spoiled child." He said that he could feel the gap between his friends and himself when he was a child. His friends lived "at home" while he lived In "The Palace".
Child Marcos and his father
In 1970, 13-year-old Marcos was sent to study in the UK, first studying at Worth School in England. Founded in the early 17th century, this school is a famous private school and boarding school in the UK, with annual tuition fees of up to 36,000 pounds. Later, Marcos entered Oxford University to study political economics and philosophy, but he was not a good student. It is said that he only passed the philosophy subject, not economics, and failed the political science exam twice, and ultimately failed to obtain a degree. There are also rumors that when he was a student, he lived as luxuriously as his parents, with a monthly allowance of up to US$10,000.
Marcos Jr. at Oxford University in England in 1975
In 1980, Marcos Sr. was still in power in the Philippines. The 23-year-old Marcos Jr. began to serve as the deputy governor of Ilocos Norte, Philippines, and became the governor in 1983. Ilocos Norte is the hometown of the Marcos family and their traditional political stronghold. But with the exile of the Marcos family to Hawaii in 1986, Marcos Jr.'s political career was also interrupted.
After the death of Marcos Sr., his family members were allowed to return to the Philippines. Marcos, who had experienced ups and downs in life, returned to Philippine politics in 1991 and staged a "Prince's Revenge".
He started out in his hometown. In 1992, he was elected to the House of Representatives as a representative of Ilocos Norte Province. In 1998, he ran for the governor of the province and was successfully elected. In 2007, he was re-elected to the House of Representatives, and in 2010 to the Senate, where he served until 2016. In the Philippines, with a population of more than 100 million, senators are elected by popular vote, and there are only 24 seats in the Philippine Senate, so the political weight of senators is very heavy. However, in the 2016 Philippine national and local elections, Marcos Jr. ran for vice president, but narrowly lost to his opponent, current Vice President Robredo.
Marcos Jr.’s wife, Luis, comes from the Araneta family, a prominent Filipino family. She is a scholar and has taught in many universities in the Philippines. The Araneta family owns multinational companies and is rich in talents, including many politicians, wealthy businessmen and well-known religious figures. They have three sons. The Philippines' "Manila Times" reported that the eldest son Sandro graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science with a master's degree. Now he has entered the political arena and participated in this year's Ilocos Norte Provincial Council election; the second son graduated from from Oxford Brookes University, majoring in business administration , and currently working in a multinational company; his younger son William is a software engineer and has lived in Singapore for a long time.
Marcos Jr. and his wife
"Internet celebrity" presidential candidate
Why was Marcos Jr. so successful in this Philippine election that he won with a simple majority? This is inseparable from his political strategy of "avoiding important issues and minimizing disadvantages", cleverly amplifying advantages and reducing disadvantages.
On the one hand, there are still many supporters of the old Marcos in the Philippines, and they miss that "golden era." Marcos Jr. has always adopted a strategy of downplaying the scandals during his father's rule and opposed those corruption accusations. At the same time, efforts were made to highlight his father's contribution to the Philippines and strengthen the impression that his ruling period was the "golden age" in Philippine history.
On the other hand, Marcos Jr. used social media as his main campaign base to build himself into an "Internet celebrity." He has more than 2 million fans on overseas video platforms, and the cumulative number of fans on social media such as " Twitter " and " Facebook " exceeds 6 million. Since announcing his candidacy for president in October 2021, he and his campaign team have interacted with millions of fans on social media. They not only use vlogs to publish policy platforms and canvassing videos, but also often share Marcos Jr.’s personal life, such as playing guitar and Mobile games, family dinners, accepting challenges from netizens, answering weird questions, etc. In the video, young Marcos also joked with Sarah about his love for burgers and mango milkshakes. Such videos are very popular among young people. Many netizens feel that they are particularly "modern", "innovative" and people-friendly.
The Philippines is a big country in social media. Filipinos rank first in the world in terms of time spent on social media. 80% of the country's 110 million people have social media accounts. A large part of them overlap with voter groups. According to data from the Philippine Election Commission, there are 65.7 million registered voters in the Philippines and 1.69 million overseas voters, more than half of whom are between the ages of 18 and 41. Many of these young people know little about the history of the old Marcos era. Some comments said, "The people who support young Marcos now were not born when the old Marcos was in power."
In addition, as Sarah's partner , Marcos also received the " endorsement of " from the current Philippine President Duterte. The Philippine Presidential Palace has released photos of Duterte and Marcos Jr. exchanging "governing experiences." Duterte's ruling party, the Democratic People's Power, also passed a resolution supporting the combination of Marcos Jr. and Sara.
However, Marcos, who is good at operating social media, did not elaborate much on his policy propositions. Since the start of the campaign, Marcos has rarely given interviews to the media. He is also the only candidate among the 10 presidential candidates to miss the two televised debates held by the Electoral Commission. During the campaign, he and Sarah promoted the slogan "National Unity" and cast themselves as "men who heal divisions." Now, after the two political families of Marcos and Duterte join forces, it is worth paying attention to how the two "second generation presidents" will govern the Philippine political arena in the next six years.
