The Philippines awoke on Tuesday to a new political landscape after Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s victory paved the way for an unimaginable return to the country’s most corrupt political family.
Known as “Pongbong”, Marcos defeated his nemesis Leni Robredo to become the first candidate in the country’s modern history to win an absolute majority in a presidential election. for decades.
Marcus Jr. fled into exile in Hawaii with his family during the “people power” uprising that ended his father’s 20-year autocratic rule, and after returning to the country in 1991, he was an MP.
And now, Marcos’s victory in Monday’s election seems certain, after an unofficial tally of about 98 percent of the valid votes showed that he received almost 31 million votes, twice the number of votes received by Robredo.
Official results are expected to be announced towards the end of this month.
“Thousands of you volunteers and political leaders who have supported us because of our belief in the message of unity that we have sent,” Marcos said in a statement posted on Facebook, standing next to the Philippine flag.
Although Marcos, 64, has built his campaign on unity, political analysts say his presidency is unlikely to bolster it, even with a large margin of victory.
Philippine stocks fell 3% on Tuesday before recouping losses. Its decline is in line with global weakness in equities, but analysts point to policy uncertainty that Marcos may apply.
“Investors would love to see his economic team,” said Jonathan Ravelas, market strategist at BDO Unibank in Manila. At the same time, the value of the Philippine peso rose by 0.4 percent against the dollar.
Many of the millions who voted for Robredo are outraged by what they see as a shameless attempt by the reviled dictator’s family to use their social media power to change the historical realities of their rule.
Thousands of opponents of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. were harassed during martial law from 1972 to 1981, and the surname became synonymous with plunder and luxury as billions of dollars of national wealth disappeared.
The Marcos family denies wrongdoing and many of its supporters, bloggers and social media influencers say the historical accounts are misrepresented.
Some 400 people, mostly students, protested in front of the Electoral Commission against Marcos on Tuesday, citing electoral irregularities.
The Electoral Commission says the vote was relatively peaceful. The commission also insisted Tuesday on dismissing complaints filed by various groups, including a group of martial law victims who sought to prevent Marcos Jr. from running for president based on a 1995 conviction for tax evasion.
Akbayan’s group, one of the groups that filed complaints, said it would appeal the commission’s decision to the Supreme Court, calling it “both a catastrophic and an institutional failure.”
The results showed that Sarah Duterte-Carpio, the daughter of current President Rodrigo Duterte, won the vice presidency with more than three times the number of her closest rival in the post.
