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Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has waited a very long time for this second.
Thirty-six years after Filipinos overthrew his father, Ferdinand E. Marcos, in a well-liked revolt, Mr. Marcos appears more likely to develop into the primary particular person to win the presidential election within the Philippines by a majority in additional than three a long time.
Mr. Marcos has spent a long time defending his household’s identify in opposition to accusations of greed and corruption and downplaying the legacy of his father’s brutal rule. Throughout his presidential marketing campaign, he has portrayed himself as a unifier, whereas false narratives on-line reimagine his father’s regime as a “golden period” within the nation’s historical past.
The race is being forged as a contest between those that keep in mind the previous and people who are accused of attempting to distort it, the final chapter in a brazen effort to absolve the Marcoses of wrongdoing and quash any effort to carry the household accountable.
Six years of President Rodrigo Duterte — a Marcos ally identified for his bloody conflict on medicine and for jailing his critics — might have presaged a Marcos household comeback.
The household is accused of looting as a lot as $10 billion from the federal government earlier than fleeing to Hawaii in 1986, when the peaceable “Folks Energy” protests toppled the Marcos regime. The household returned to the nation shortly after the loss of life of the elder Mr. Marcos in 1989.
Regardless of the exile, the Marcos identify by no means really left the political institution.
Mr. Marcos, identified by his boyhood nickname, “Bongbong,” served as vice governor, governor and congressman in Ilocos Norte, the household stronghold, for a lot of the interval between the Nineteen Eighties and 2010. That yr, he entered the nationwide political scene when he was elected senator. Imelda Marcos, his 92-year-old mom, twice ran unsuccessfully for president within the Nineties.
“My mother wished me to run since I used to be 8 years outdated,” Mr. Marcos mentioned in “The Kingmaker,” a documentary about his mom.
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