Ferdinand Marcos Jr.namesake of his father the Filipino dictatorwants to finish “rehabilitating” his family by becoming president of the country.
The Marcos returned to politics in an amazing way in the three decades following the popular uprising that overthrew the dictator, in 1986, and after an exile in the United States.
Marcos Jr.., nicknamed “bongbong”, currently 64 years old, led this comeback. In 2016, he narrowly lost the vice presidency when Rodrigo Duterte acceded to the first magistracy in a parallel consultation.
The links of Marcos jr. with his father, a bloody oppressor for long years under martial law, they divide the country.
But his campaign on social networks targeting the youngest, who did not live through the dictatorship, has proven to be very effective, affirming his popularity and, for critics, “rewriting” history.
The polls put him on track for a landslide victory on May 9, which would mark the return to the presidential palace of a family that fled into exile more than 35 years ago.
Marcos Jr. was in a British pension in 1972 when his father imposed martial law, triggering a bloody repression of dissidents and large-scale corruption.
He defended his father’s regime with the strong economic growth and public spending under this law as an argument, covering up the corruption and poor management that impoverished the country.
Although it has recognized that that period was marked by human rights violationsminimizes them.
The presidential candidate claims that then he was too young to assume any responsibility for his father’s dictatorshipbut his detractors remember that he was provincial governor of Ilocos Norte, a family feud, between 1983 and 1986, when the “patriarch” of the Marcos clan still held power.
In addition, in 1985 he was appointed president of a satellite services company under government control.
“The haters will hate”
This company was one of many fronts used to transfer illicit profits abroadaccording to an asset recovery agency set up after the father’s fall.
The dictator died in Hawaii in 1989and then the family was allowed to return to Philippineswhere he resumed a political career exploiting local loyalties to reach successive high positions.
The current president, Rodrigo Dutertewas more supportive, referring to the former dictator as “the best president of all time”organizing his burial in the Cemetery of the Heroes, in Manila.
In addition, the family was favored thanks to the fact that subsequent governments have also been denounced for corruption and the anger fueled by an eternal division between rich and poor.
Returned from exile, Marcos Jr. won his father’s seat in the Congress of Ilocos Norte in 1992, six years later he became provincial governor and national senator in 2010, just like his sister today.
Imeldahis mother, held a seat in the lower house of parliament for three terms, later leaving it to a nephew.
Duterte, whose 2016 victory he attributed to patronage of the Marcoses, was a longtime supporter of “Bongbong.”
Both families forged a fearsome alliancein which Mark Jr. teamed up with Duterte’s daughter Sara, now running for vice president. Nevertheless Duterte Sr. has been more critical in recent months of Marcos Jr., calling him “weak.”
In a recent interview, he responded to this criticism with a chorus from Taylor Swift’s song “Shake it off.”
“The haters gonna hate!” (The haters will hate), He launched.
(With information from AFP)
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Source-www.infobae.com