By Artchil B. Fernandez
The return of the Marcoses to power had one objective: redemption. The twenty-year rule of Marcos senior turned the Marcoses into villains of Philippine history. The dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos senior was marked with horrific human rights violations, blatant abuse of power, and clinical robbery of national treasury.
It was no accident that the Marcoses were driven from power through EDSA People Power revolt. After two decades of abuse and oppression, finally Filipinos had enough. “Tama Na, Sobra Na!” was the cry of the times in 1986. Filipinos collectively rose and overthrew the much-despised Marcos dictatorship and the Marcoses went down in history as scoundrels.
While in political wilderness, the Marcoses plotted for decades not only to return to power but to cleanse their wicked image. They tirelessly worked hard backed by enormous wealth stolen from the Filipino people to distort, deform, twist, and mangle history and remake it in their own image. This is done through misinformation, disinformation, and outright falsification of history. Sowing historical confusion through distortion is the chief strategy of the Marcoses.
The advent of the internet and the digital world offered the Marcoses a favorable social milieu to intensify their effort to falsify history. They cannot do it when traditional media was ascendant. Despite feebleness, traditional media is governed by code of conduct and guided by the ethics of journalism. The falsehoods peddled by Marcoses cannot and did not gain traction. But thing drastically changed when social media came.
Social media gave the Marcoses the platform to carry out their nefarious agenda. Unencumbered by journalism’s code of conduct or ethics, social media is the perfect tool for the Marcoses to spread their lies, falsehoods, misinformation, and disinformation. The target was the younger generations mostly born after the 1986 EDSA revolt. Troll farms and factories financed by ill-gotten wealth did all the dirty work for the Marcoses.
The Marcoses mounted a successful comeback and counter-revolution chiefly aided by social media where their lies and falsehoods polluted the digital landscape. Bongbong Marcos’ (BBM) victory in the 2022 election is the culmination of project redemption of the Marcoses.
Once in power, BBM is working hard to change the negative image of his family, in two fronts – domestic and international. His frantic travels to Western capitals are part of the campaign to change the awful reputation of his family.
There is only one snag in the best laid plan of the Marcoses – the truth. Everywhere BBM goes, he is always haunted by questions about his family’s stolen wealth, horrendous human rights violations during his father’s dictatorship and similar issues. He can only squirm and awkwardly evade the questions. Is BBM really sincere in redeeming his family or his act is only for show, a mere façade?
The problem of territorial dispute with China in the West Philippine Sea and the current investigation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) of Du30’s gruesome and bloody war on drugs unmasked whether BBM’s redemption effort is real or a farce. The contradictory position of BBM on these issues exposed not only his dilemma but how farcical the Marcos redemption project is.
On the territorial dispute with China in the West Philippine, BBM insist on rules-based international order. He anchors his position on international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (Unclos) and the victory of the Philippines in the Permanent Court or Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague. In this week’s visit of New Zealand’s Prime Minister, BBM once again invoked international law.
“As mature democracies and responsible states, both our countries uphold similar values, including our shared respect for international law, such as the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” BBM declared. “And respecting and upholding the rule of law is a matter of concern not only for the Philippines and New Zealand, but absolutely, certainly, the rest of the international community as well,” he added.
Yet on the issue of the ICC’s investigation of his predecessor’s gory and bloody war on drugs BBM expressed aversion to international law. This week he again said he will not hand over Du30 to ICC. “We won’t recognize the warrant that they will send to us,” BBM asserted during the presidential forum organized by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.
BBM deliberately ignored the fact that the Rome Statute which created the ICC is part of international law. He also purposely forgot that he was one of the senators who voted to ratify the Rome Statute.
Contradictory position of BMM on Unclos and Rome Statute prompted a journalist to pointedly ask “Is a rules-based order only applicable when it’s convenient for the Philippines?” How can BBM handily insist on international law when it comes to territorial dispute with China while deliberately junk the same when it comes to ICC?
This inconsistency only exposes the duplicity and hypocrisy of BBM’s redemption project. He does things to promote his personal and selfish interest and whatever serves him. BBM does not care about international law much more about human rights but only on cleansing the wicked record of his family. But reality and truth are thwarting BBM’s redemption project revealing it as phony.
He is a different Marcos, BBM tells the world. His words are yet to be matched by action. In this sense, Marcos junior is no different from Marcos senior – duplicitous.
