Alright so overall tendency is to just scream “omg a dictator’s son won the elections!?!” and leave it at that. I understand this sentiment but I want to throw a little bit of… nuance into the mix. Yes, Marcos senior was awful in many ways. Agreed. But does this automatically mean his son, Bongbong Marcos, will be uniquely terrible at his job as well? I don’t believe so. Sons are not always their father’s clone, and as shady as a family may be, I don’t believe we necessarily inherit all our ancestors’ sins.
Most of the angst and anxiety of the recent Marcos victory in the Filipino elections of May 9 is focused on his father’s rather awful track record. I wrote about this in some detail. Today I want to look instead at the son. Who is Bongbong Marcos?
He’s a former governor and senator. He failed to graduate Oxford, much to his brilliant father’s shame. Enemies and rivals have made his academic track record as a rod to hit him with and mock him for. Some call Marcos junior “stupid” and say all he does is ride the coattails of his famous father. There is a lot, a LOT of hate going around. And in the emotional narrative we lose sight of the facts. And the fact is, believe it or not, Bongbong Marcos was actually a pretty damn decent governor.
Under young Marcos’ tenure, the Northern province of Ilocos-Norte saw a massive increase in rice production. Investing in new agricultural techniques, governor Marcos uplifted the entire food production of his father’s birthplace. Ilocos-Norte became the country’s biggest producer of rice and livestock grew in numbers as well. Production was through the roof. He invested in affordable and green energy as well, particularly wind energy and solar panels. In office from 1999 to 2007, the dictator’s son was beloved by his voters and left his ancestral lands a better place then he found them.
As a senator, Bongbong “BBM” Marcos was less effective. He was not terrible, mind you and he did author several laws and co-authored many others. His biggest project was affordable housing for all Filipinos. In this particular area he was quite active. Overall, compared to the nation’s top senators, he signed less bills and was somewhat single-minded, perhaps a bit of an underperformer. After he decided not to run for senate in 2016, instead running for Vice President, Marcos’ political career came to a grinding halt… narrowly losing the race for VP, he spent the last six years more or less ‘in limbo’ as he prepared for his all-or-nothing 2022 presidential bid.
Now is Bongbong Marcos going to be a horrible dictator and declare Martial Law like his father did? No he won’t. I’m pretty sure he won’t. And here’s why — he doesn’t need to. With his eldest son Sandro Marcos a newly elected congressman, Bongbong Marcos already has an heir ready and waiting. Term limits for Filipino presidents are capped at six years, with a maximum if one single term. Political dynasties always do well, historically speaking, in the Philippines. The majority of presidents come from dynasties. The better Marcos performs, the greater his family’s chances at keeping the Clan in power. He knows this. And as such, he has to perform well.
And I actually expect him, to perform reasonably well. He performed well as a governor in the past. Duterte was just a mayor but running a whole province is somewhat comparable to running a small country. And typically, the Marcos Clan views “its province” as more or less something they rule as Kings and Queens. This particular King knows what he is doing. We see a lot of hair-pulling, over-acting dramatics from Filipinos who didn’t vote for Marcos. For them this presidency is “the end of the world”. Amidst all the theatrical doom and gloom, I try to keep a cool head.
And it’s easy to get swept up in the doomsday preaching and the predictions of just how horrible “the dictator’s son” will be. But if you ask me for my prediction — and I correctly predicted the outcome of the elections months ago — I expect Bongbong Marcos to be a relatively boring, reasonably competent leader. His presidency will be more like that of predictable but steady Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and less like that of populist wildcard Rodrigo Duterte.
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