It certainly won’t be the dramatic “end of the world as we know it” scenario the Filipino opposition is warning about. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos was sworn in on June 30. He already declared his cabinet picks. Some odd ducks but mostly competent people from what I can tell. Some are his political enemies before… that’s a sign of wisdom and maturity, I would say.
The people who hated the rule of Marcos senior will, understandably, have a bad taste in their mouth seeing his son in office. But just because his father was a dictator does not mean Marcos junior will be one. Plus, he quite literally cannot afford to screw up — the political career of his family lies in the balance. If he underperforms, his son Sandro Marcos, currently also a politician and member of congress, will see his own future ambitions sink. Let us not forget that the previous six years have been a bloodbath, too. Along comes Marcos, who ends all that on day one as an aggressive anti-drug program is not part of his goals.
Having studied Marcos’ history as a politician so far, I’m personally not too worried about his presidency. Unlike Duterte he won’t kill tens of thousands of suspected drug dealers without due process. No more death squads roaming the slums at night, murdering civilians with reckless abandon and impunity… after Duterte’s “Dirty Harry” rule, another boring scion of a political dynasty, like Noynoy Aquino before Duterte, is kind of… a breath of fresh air. You don’t get perfection or anything close to it, but a Marcos presidency, compared to Duterte’s increasingly authoritarian rule, IS a return to some sort of normalcy. And that’s much needed going forward.
The only problem I foresee is one in which Filipinos treat Marcos as “the Messiah” who will come and fix every problem in the country almost overnight. He won’t. Neither did Duterte, nor did Ramos, the two Aquino’s or Arroyo. In fact each new ‘savior’ tends to create as many issues as they solve and six years is never enough to implement lasting change. It takes time, and effort, for things to improve. Are the Filipino patient enough to both give Marcos a chance and, at the same time, not expect him to be a wizard who will fix everything that ails the Philippines with his magic wand?
It’s important to be fair and remain realistic. Was Bongbong Marcos born with a silver spoon in his mouth? Yes. Were his parents notoriously corrupt? Yes. Was he a decent governor and senator himself? Also yes. Will he be like his father? No. We are not our DNA — we are our own personal choices. As a father of soon-to-be four Filipo citizens, I hope he makes the right ones.
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