“Let’s reject, reject, reject Marcos-Duterte,” chanted a dozen demonstrators in front of the Plamondon metro station in Montreal on Wednesday evening. What are they denouncing? The result of the national election in the Philippines which elected Ferdinand Marcos Junior, son of the late dictator, on Tuesday.
Posted at 10:38 p.m.
“We are all shocked. We are all sad. There has been massive fraud in the Philippines. We don’t accept that,” drops Cheney de Guzman, the communications officer at PINAY, a nonprofit for Filipino immigrant women.
Ferdinand Marcos Junior, son of the late dictator, won a landslide presidential victory in the Philippines on Tuesday, reinstalling his family clan at the top of power, 36 years after the popular revolt which had driven him out. Sarah Duterte, the daughter of the current president, Rodrigo Duterte, also won the election as vice president under Marcos’ list.
PHOTO NEIL JEROME MORALES, REUTERS
Ferdinand Marcos Junior won the presidential election in the Philippines on Tuesday.
This victory of son Marcos leaves a bitter taste for millions of Filipinos who hoped to turn the page of six years of presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, marked by violence, including a bloody war against drug trafficking, and increased authoritarianism.
“The May 9 presidential election is a profound setback for democracy. It brings back to power the family of Ferdinand Marcos – one of the most notorious dictators of the Cold War”, declared on the McGill University website, Erik Kuhonta, professor in the department of political science and director of the institute. for the study of international development at McGill University.
“Thanks to a powerful disinformation campaign on social media, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, known as Bongbong, was able to whitewash his father’s record of corruption and human rights abuses, and win the presidency. Filipino hands down,” he added.
For years, pro-Marcos Junior accounts have invaded social networks, passing off to young Filipinos the twenty years of his father’s regime (1965-1986) as a golden era of peace and prosperity for the archipelago. And ignoring the tens of thousands of opponents arrested, tortured or killed, or even the billions of dollars stolen by the Marcos clan from the coffers of the country for their personal enrichment.
The regime had been overthrown in 1986 by a huge popular revolt, and the Marcos family had gone into exile in the United States, before returning to the country to patiently reweave a powerful network of political support.
Less than half a century after their fall, the Marcos will return in July to the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila, from where “Bongbong” has promised to restore “unity” to the country during his six-year term.
With Agence France-Presse