Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has waited a long time for this moment.
Thirty-six years after the Filipinos overthrew his father, Ferdinand E. Marcos, in a popular uprising, Marcos looks likely to become the first person to win the presidential election in the Philippines with a majority in more than three decades.
mr. Marcos has spent decades defending his family’s name against charges of greed and corruption and downplaying the legacy of his father’s brutal reign. During his presidential campaign, he has portrayed himself as a unifier, while false stories online commemorate his father’s regime as a “golden age” in the country’s history.
The race is seen as a competition between those who remember the past and those accused of trying to twist it, the final chapter in a brutal attempt to absolve the Marcoses of their wrongdoings and negate any attempt to hold the family accountable. to do.
Six years of President Rodrigo Duterte — an ally of Marcos known for his bloody war on drugs and incarcerating his critics — may have heralded a comeback for the Marcos family.
The family is accused of looting as much as $10 billion from the government before fleeing to Hawaii in 1986, when peaceful “People Power” protests overthrew the Marcos regime. The family returned to the country shortly after the death of the elder Mr. Marcos in 1989.
Despite the exile, the Marcos name never really left the political establishment.
Mr. Marcos, known by the nickname “Bongbong” from his youth, was vice governor, governor and congressman in Ilocos Norte, the family stronghold, for much of the period between the 1980s and 2010. That year he entered the national political scene. when he was elected senator. Imelda Marcos, his 92-year-old mother, was president twice unsuccessfully in the 1990s.
“My mom has wanted me to run since I was 8 years old,” said Mr. Marcos in “The Kingmaker,” a documentary about his mom.