on monday the philippines will hold
consequential elections anyone alive
from the 1980s then you'll remember the
people power revolution that toppled the
marcos dictatorship and now ferdinand
marcos's son marcos jr is the top
contender to be the next president of
the country it is quite the sequel for
this political dynasty dw's janelle de
milan traveled to marco stronghold
ilocos norte to speak to his supporters
the specter of ferdinand marcos senior
still looms large over philippine
politics ahead of the election visitors
are flocking to this museum in ilocos
norte for a dose of history if not a
particularly nuanced one
inside it chronicles the marcus's time
and power a lot on the rise but
curiously little on the fall
and nothing on the documented human
rights abuses and wholesale plunder in
between located in the marcus's home
province it's called the malacanang of
the north named after the presidential
palace in manila some 480 kilometers
away from here it is a symbol of the
path he has taken from here to the
highest office in the land and it will
become clear in a matter of days whether
his son will manage to achieve the same
here at least bongbong marcos is
guaranteed an easy ride many voters
remember the marcuses not as kleptocrats
but as patrons
did marco steal
look at our roads how nice they are
even if i were bribed i would never
change my vote
the marcoses are good people
those who study the region say support
for the marcuses is driven by a sense of
gratitude among the electorate
they will tell you that their lands are
from marcos
their cows their animals came from
marcos you have
a university name after marcus you have
an hospital named after marcos and other
in other institutions and if you trace
that again to ilocano culture we call
that talia
you have to go
or you have to look back or pay
for whatever whatever benefit that you
that you had from
from your benefactor
that means campaigning for any other
presidential candidate here apart from
bongbong marcos is an especially
difficult undertaking
we have experienced harassment bullying
and we are told there is no place for us
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it is scary for us volunteers
but we keep on fighting
because when i meet silent supporters i
am happy
and i know we are not alone
while robredo is unlikely to win in this
mark of stronghold what's clear is that
different versions of the past and
visions for the future are competing in
this election both in ilocos norte and
across the philippines
for those who do not support marcos jr
and for those observers outside the
country the big question has been how
this could possibly be happening how
could another marcos possibly become the
next leader given what that dictatorship
did to the people of the philippines
with its massive corruption and its
rampant human rights abuses
a warning that some viewers may find
this next report upsetting
they are in a minority
but they exist
the filipinos determined to remind
voters of the brutality of the
dictatorship of ferdinand marcus
one person who will never forget the
atrocities committed by marcus and his
henchmen is christina bagawan
she was one of tens of thousands of
people detained and tortured for their
political views during martial law
her testimony is distressing
and the the hardest thing was that they
put an object in my vagina that was the
worst part of it
and of course all throughout i was
screaming
no one seemed to hear
bhagawan is incensed at what she says
are efforts by the marcus family to
rewrite
who the past
all that and we have at least 11 000
uh
how many is this 103
okay
who are
have been established and have shown
paper proof
that they were either killed
another person horrified at the prospect
of a dictator's son becoming president
his former political prisoner felix
dallassy
he too was tortured
it makes my blood boil
what the heck the marcos will be back
the trauma during the times of martial
law it all comes back
with the marquez return the memories of
torture have all returned
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the marcos dictatorship was eventually
overthrown by what's known as the people
power revolution
the family was forced to flee but
critics say despite such anger there's
been a lack of accountability
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after marcus senior died in 1989
the family were allowed to return to the
philippines
and re-establish themselves
the former first lady imelda marcus
known for her extravagant lifestyle was
convicted of graft in 2018
but has never spent a day in prison
benefiting it seems from what appears to
be the collective amnesia of an entire
nation
behalf journalist ana santos usually
based in the philippines joining us it's
great to have you in the studio thanks
very much for having me melissa so anna
i'm wondering are people's memories
short or is all forgiven with the marcos
regime that we have this situation i
wouldn't say that all is forgiven but
more that a lot of history has been
whitewashed and scrubbed clean we can
see the massive disinformation and
historical revisionism that the marcuses
have invested in this has been really
well documented by both international
press like the washington post and dw as
well and domestic outlets they have been
using tick-tock
youtube and really setting a new
narrative of what the marcus years were
like in the 70s so martial law era is
now being set to music and punched up
with emojis and really softened up as
like this golden era of philippine
history
whitewashing all of the human rights
atrocities and the massive corruption of
the marxists during those years and of
course the 1980s the 1970s it was a long
time ago you have a new generation
of young
people in the philippines who don't
remember that period exactly and that's
why you know the analysts have said that
the disinformation campaign being
mounted on platforms such as youtube and
tick tock does two things number one it
escapes regulation it's much harder to
regulate those platforms number two it
reaches a younger voting population that
would have no memory of what demarcus
years were like and secondly it also
sets up the stage for the future marcus
possibility of a regime we have to see
that apart from the marcos jr running
for president his son is also running in
this election for a local office that's
super interesting so let's uh hone in on
that um ferdinand marcos jr has been a
politician governor senator um have we
seen anything to suggest
that it's like father like son and that
there are autocratic tendencies or
anything like that you know the
political analysts and strategists who
have been looking at his campaign see it
as very interesting in the way that he
is one banking on the marcus last name
he is the namesake of his father and but
secondly softening the strong man image
with a little bit of his own you know
his his political campaign message is
one of unity so nothing very you know
nothing very strong or very insidious or
inflammatory something that's very
palliative calling everyone towards
unity so that we can all achieve our
nation
our nation's dreams and for a better
future so he's taken those two the
marcus name and his own kind of persona
which is he soft and quite uh congenial
on tv to come together to bring in his
own narrative now we've been focused on
the marcuses but of course there are
other candidates running for president
can you talk about them particularly the
lenny robredo you know melissa there are
10 candidates running for president in
the philippines but let's focus on the
current vice president lenny robredo one
thing that's very interesting is that in
the 2016 elections vice president
robredo ran against bongbong marcos and
she won the vice presidency by 220 000
votes just about that much you know it's
very interesting that again we see these
two
running for the same political office
and if i may bring back viewers towards
to 1986
marcus the father ran against a woman
who was a widow she was put into the
political limelight when her husband had
died and she ousted him right back in
1986 we see something of that same
nature coming together vice president
robredo is also a widow her husband was
the one who was more in the political
limelight though she had many
achievements of her own as a politician
and as a human rights lawyer she was put
into the presidency
last-minute candidate who won
this seems like a crazy sequel
it does but it's also quite you can't
make this stuff up and it's quite poetic
how you know we we called it back then
when when vice president robredo won it
was called like poetic justice
you know again a widow had beat the
strong man from the vice presidency and
now we're looking to see if that is
going to happen again i think what needs
to be put out here is uh bongbong marcos
leads if we are to believe the polls he
leads by a very wide margin
vice president roberto is number two by
a far second but we also have to see the
campaign of vice president loretta on
the ground i was in manila a few weeks
ago her supporters are volunteers they
call it not a campaign melissa they call
it a movement i have to tell you that
there's so much vigor
in the campaigns for vice president
roberto in her rallies there's so much
cam there's so much vigor there's so
much
determination
to number one make her win and not let a
repeat of the marcus years happen
and it's everything is fueled by a lot
of hope
ana santos this is fascinating thank you
so much for joining us in the studio
thank you melissa
you