In place of traditional media, an elaborate industry of unaccountable public relations firms, influencers and vloggers manufacturing support for the administration now occupies the mainstream of the country’s information system. He eventually took the largest news network ABS-CBN out of the airwaves. To neutralize criticism of his War on Drugs, Rodrigo Duterte vigorously attacked journalists from Day 1 of his rule. Disinformation machines powered by Facebook, Youtube and Tiktok algorithms thrive unchecked in the country. Marcos Jr.’s advantages in this election are legion. Indeed, a glimpse into these legal blackholes afforded by the Panama Papers reveals that a Marcos daughter Irene Marcos-Araneta as well as his chief lawyer Edgardo Angara had previously unknown holdings in the British Virgin Islands. But the true extent of the loot is unknown, no thanks to global mechanisms and financial safe havens that keep former dictators’ ill-gotten wealth hidden. The Philippine government agency tasked to document and recover the Marcos ill-gotten wealth called the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) has recovered only a small part of this wealth largely from Swiss banks. And these resources the Marcoses clearly retained throughout the past decades. The very long Marcos comeback story is impossible without access to a very deep well of financial resources. The Marcoses also bankrolled Erap Estrada, the winner of the 1998 election, as well as Duterte, who reciprocated by allowing Marcos Sr.’s burial in the cemetery for heroes. unsuccessfully tried to return to power through coup d’etats, and his wife Imelda, who was allowed to return to the country unsuccessfully ran for president in 19, ranking close to the bottom of the list of contenders in both attempts. The Marcoses have been orchestrating a comeback to Malaca ñ ang Palace ever since they were exiled to Hawai’i. became a serious contender for the presidency is in itself dumbfounding, but in hindsight, all too foreseeable. She’s running a volunteer-led campaign that is drawing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to her rallies almost every day, and according to Google Trends, she has outstripped Marcos Jr. in a tight race in the 2016 Vice Presidential election, may well stop the Marcos restoration. However, Leni Robredo, a Duterte critic who defeated Marcos Jr. Massive online misinformation recasts the Marcos dictatorship as a golden age and circulates dumbfounding denials and conspiracy theories that the Marcos kleptocracy and human rights abuses were but myths. His campaign, packaged ironically around the theme of “unity”, is based on fracturing consensus on historical facts. In 1986, his father and namesake Ferdinand Marcos was thrown out of power and driven to exile in the United States following massive demonstrations called the EDSA People Power uprising. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., which the polling firm Pulse Asia says is leading the race by a wide margin, would like the election to be a plebiscite on reality itself. The world watches as Filipinos elect the successor of President Rodrigo Duterte on May 9, 2022.
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