How long does it take a people to shake off the memory of a cruel and kleptocratic rule? Thirty-six years, in the case of the Philippines. There, Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos was sworn in as president on Thursday, after winning the election by a large majority in May.
The voters did not object to the fact that his father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., had to flee a popular uprising in 1986, after years of autocracy in which thousands of civilians were tortured and killed. No more than the $10 billion that the former president and his wife Imelda had robbed from the state coffers.
The memory of that time has faded, or rather: actively erased and replaced by a false image. Through Facebook, YouTube and other social media, the family, now led by Imelda (92), has spent years built to the story that the Marcos years were a ‘golden age’, in which prosperity increased and the country modernized.
This campaign of disinformation has only succeeded because the Philippines (population 110 million) has hardly any free press. The country is in seventh place in the global ‘impunity index’in which the Committee to Protect Journalists tracks the number of unsolved murders of journalists.
The main critical medium in the Philippines, news site Rappler, has been under constant threat under Marcos’ predecessor Rodrigo Duterte and is currently fighting against forced closure. That co-founder Maria Ressa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for her fight against fake news and disinformation has offered no protection to Rappler.
The situation in the Philippines shows how fake news and misinformation can gain the upper hand if they are not repeatedly refuted and corrected. This is also the case in the Russia of fellow Nobel laureate Dimitri Muratov, where many citizens are convinced that Ukraine must be liberated from Nazis. And Europe is also not immune to half-truths and whole untruths, as it turned out during the pandemic.
Of course, a son cannot be held responsible for his parents’ crimes, and every democratically elected leader deserves a chance. But it makes one think that Marcos Jr. has not distanced himself from the past. On the contrary, he is citing it.
“My father built more roads and produced more rice than any previous government,” the new president said when he took office. “He got things done. [..] So will it be with his son.” In reality, poverty rose during father’s rule.
The president is silent about the dark pages of the past, and he has also said little reassuringly about human rights in the present. When asked whether he will reverse the Duterte-imposed shutdown of Rappler, he declined to comment. It was therefore this site that revealed in 2015 that Marcos Jr. went through life with a polished resume.
Furthermore, cooperation in the International Criminal Court’s investigation into Duterte’s drug war is not expected, if only because Duterte’s daughter is now vice president.
The Marcos family has managed to create an atmosphere of nostalgia for a time that never existed and thus determine the course of history. It is hoped that critical voices like Rappler will continue to find ways to counterbalance in the coming years.
Read also Imelda Marcos: A Terrifying Dragon Granny
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of July 4, 2022