It was at the end of a presidential campaign under the sign of misinformation that Ferdinand Marcos Junior, son of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, acceded to the supreme office in the Philippines.
36 years after his father’s exile in Hawaii, putting an end to his 21-year long dictatorial reign, Ferdinand Marcos junior, candidate of the PFP (Partido Federal ng Pilipinas) won the presidency of the Philippines, with 58.80% of the votes cast, against 30.80% of the votes going to his direct competitor Leni Robredo, independent candidate.
When the presidential term of Rodrigo Duterte came to an end, he could not stand again because the constitution does not allow it. Leni Robredo, representative of the Filipino progressive left, and Ferdinand Marcos junior, from the populist right, therefore clashed.
In addition to two programs, two visions of the Philippines clashed. The Filipinos and the Philippines who lived through the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos senior, marked by an economic golden age (the economy of the Philippines was equal to that of South Korea) and by the dictatorship, by the 70,000 opponents imprisoned, and the 3,000 who were killed, and on the other hand, the voters who did not know the dictatorship (they represent more than half of the electorate).
It is this part of the electorate that made the difference in this election, mainly influenced by the very skilful communication of the Marcos jr teams on social networks. Much of the Filipino youth have found history textbooks portraying the former president as a dictator to be misleading, choosing to believe the propaganda of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
This victory is also due to a rather surprising alliance between the clan of former President Duterte and the Marcos clan. This alliance was very successful since Marcos jr was able to benefit from the great popularity of the outgoing president, in return for which Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter, Sara, ran as Marcos jr’s running mate, winning the elections for the vice-president which took place on the same day as the presidential elections.