Memory seems short in the Philippines where, 36 years after the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, voters are preparing to open the door of Malacañan, the presidential palace, to his son, Ferdinand Marcos, during the general elections on May 9.
A poll doubly haunted by the specter of past and present authoritarianism in this Southeast Asian country, and by the filiation of power: the latest polls also give a large lead to Sara Duterte, the daughter of the current and controversial incumbent Rodrigo Duterte, who is running for vice president. All for a presidential ticket with strangely nostalgic accents and which has made the constant rewriting of history its main engine of ascent.
“Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should be infamous and unpopular because of his connection to dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and his past as a corrupt politician, drops in interview at the To have to Fatima Gaw, professor of communication at the University of the Philippines Diliman. But that’s not what’s happening, because he and his family have been engaged for 10 years in a vast project of rehabilitating their name, through misinformation and propaganda, amplified by social networks. They succeeded in posing as victims of an alleged conspiracy by historians, the media and other mainstream social institutions to whitewash the brutal record of the father’s regime. »
The mechanics seem to work well. The most recent probe, conducted by Pulse Asia between April 16 and 22, credits 56% of voting intentions to Marcos, 64, ex-senator, nicknamed “Bongbong Marcos”, or “BBM”, in reference nickname from his childhood.
He has a 33-point lead over his closest rival, the current vice-president, Leni Robredo (23%), a pro-democracy lawyer specializing in human rights, who, despite the support of an army of more than 2 million volunteers in the field, the kakampinks (the pink allies, the color of his movement), responsible for restoring from door to door the historical truths eroded by the Marcos-Duterte duo, is struggling to reverse a heavy trend.
Whitewash the past
In a recent interview with CNN Philippines, BBM was not afraid to cast her late father as a “political genius” and her mother, Imelda, as a “politician supreme.” The dictator’s wife is best known for her excessive fascination with shoes, which have become a powerful symbol of the kleptocratic regime and her husband’s abuse of power.
He also claimed that his father could have transformed the Philippines into a wealthy and well-run state, modeled on Singapore, but would not have been able to do so due to the democratic opposition which eventually brought him down. in 1986.
History books have mostly remembered that the Marcos family was sent into exile in Hawaii for five years after being overthrown by the February Revolution. The Marcos allegedly embezzled nearly $10 billion of public funds during their years in power.
Under martial law, imposed by Ferdinand Marcos senior in 1972, 34,000 people were tortured, 3,240 people were killed and 70,000 were imprisoned, according to Amnesty International.
For her part, Sara Duterte recently indicated that she would continue the war against drug trafficking initiated by her father, a campaign that she likes to present as “effective”, just to make people forget the official investigation launched last September. by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on this war on drugs. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), this repressive campaign has led to a series of extrajudicial executions. It has claimed the lives of more than 12,000 Filipinos to date, with more than 2,500 killed by national police.
“The last six years of the Duterte government have played a decisive role in building the political nostalgia for the Marcos regime that the ex-dictator’s son and his daughter Sara are enjoying today in this campaign”, summarizes Jan Robert R .Go, editor of the Philippine Political Science Journaljoined by The duty a few days ago in Manila. The daughter of the current president is carried by a wind of sympathy which could earn her 55% of the vote on May 9. In the Philippines, the election of the president and vice-president takes place in two separate ballots.
“Duterte father rehabilitated the image of Marcos father by allowing among other things that he be buried in Libingan ng mga Bayani [littéralement, le cimetière des héros] despite huge opposition. “It was in 2016. An honor that had always been denied to the family since the death of the dictator in 1989.
“In addition, Duterte openly supported this nostalgia for dictatorship with his anti-democratic rhetoric which, in the Philippine political context, maintains the positive image of the strong man at the head of the state, abounds political scientist Sol Iglesias, specialist autocracies at the University of the Philippines Diliman. But the risk is now very high for the democracy of the Philippines, which has already been crushed under the boots of Rodrigo Duterte and which could continue to crumble, and descend into authoritarianism under a regime Macros son and Duterte daughter”, adds she.
Filthy populism
In a country where 86% of the population consider corruption to be a major problem, according to Transparency International, which places the Philippines 117and world rank out of 180 in this area, the two candidates have taken advantage of the weaknesses of public institutions and the political system to rally the masses by wrapping themselves in the usual populist postures: “anti-elites, anti-intellectual, anti-traditional, and pro-poor, who dominated the campaign,” said Perlita M. Frago-Marasigan, a political science professor in Manila. “The inability of mainstream parties to bring about meaningful change has led people to seek ‘strong politicians’ even if their rhetoric is ultimately delusional. »
“BBM did not present a program or an agenda during his campaign, noted Jan Robert R. Go. He relied on the achievements of his father. His supporters say they want to vote for him because his father did well as president, which is far from true. With Sara Duterte, their battle cry is that of unity, which remains very vague in fact, and above all proves to be a portmanteau to satisfy their supporters. »
A unit that seems more oriented towards family interests. The aspiring president could indeed take advantage of power to stifle a tax scandal unearthed by the local media during this campaign: the Marcos would have outstanding payments amounting to nearly 4 billion dollars. In the campaign, the son of the dictator always refused to answer questions on this subject.
As for Sara Duterte, she risks using her position to obstruct the ICC investigation targeting her father.
“It wouldn’t be surprising if children tried to erase their parents’ dirt, perhaps by changing school textbooks, changing museum exhibits and using other forms of propaganda,” said Jan Robert R. Go. Political nostalgia, in its replays, will certainly become a powerful tool to consolidate their grip on power and become their engine to change the political history of the country. And this, also for the benefit of the great political families of the country, which could well be, before the poor, the main beneficiaries of this “unity” sold during the electoral campaign.
It is that while sticking to the daughter of the current president, Marcos son has also allied himself with the powerful family of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who could take the head of the legislative power, as well as to the family of former President Joseph Estrada, several of whose children are running for the Senate. These two clan leaders were imprisoned for corruption crimes committed during their presidential term.
“This four-way alliance, unprecedented even in the long history of powerful families in the Philippines working together to advance their political interests, underscores once again that power in the country is concentrated in a few hands,” noted a few years ago. days analyst Joshua Kurlantzick, of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank on contemporary geopolitics. Including dirty hands resurfacing from the past.