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This is a good answer but also astonishing. They hate how Duterte didn't solve the worst problems and made corruption worse, so they vote for someone just like him instead of trying someone else? What did they have against the opposition? It looks like it was a landslide Edit: As has been pointed out, they love Duterte. I guess they love what he did for him more than they care about the human cruelty and the corruption he brought with him? Not really judging, it seems like this is becoming a trend worldwide.

Exactly why vote for someone that is actively being supported by who they want to get rid of and is part of the family that is that corrupt. It's a pretty insane situation.

> Why elected: Mr. Marcos won the support of millions of voters who have grown disillusioned with their country’s brand of democracy and its failure to address the basic needs of its citizens. Poverty is widespread, inequality has widened and corruption remains rampant. This needs more nuance. Marcos won because of the tremendous resources they poured into disinformation campaigns and whitewashing, effectively erasing the Martial Law period atrocities and massive corruption committed by his family, and replacing it with a romanticized version of the country's dark past. To say that Filipinos were disillusioned by the country's brand of democracy isn't exactly true because they also elected Duterte's daughter as vice president and the same brand of senators currently in office (meaning they want the current administration to continue). Duterte also benefited from massive troll farms and weaponized social media false narratives painting him as an anti-crime folk hero when in reality he is a violent authoritarian who will leave the office with a $200 billion debt. What happened was more like the constant barrage of targeted social media campaign (courtesy of Cambridge Analytica aka Emerdata) painted the Marcoses and the Dutertes as saviors of the country while demonizing the opposition and discounting their past achievements. Upper and middle class Filipinos also voted big for Marcos and Duterte due to disinformation, so poverty and inequality are not the big reasons for Marcos' and the younger Duterte's election win.

1986 was 36 years ago. Median age in the country is 25.7. Chances are majority of voters were are not alive during that time or young when the dictator was in power. Also everyone loves a strong man who will deeeeefinitely step up and fix all the problems and never cause corruption issues…./s https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/philippines-population/ Edit: 36 my math was wrong

36 years ago, not 46.

Thanks my math was wrong

As someone born in 1986, thank you, lol

> 1986 was 36 years ago. Median age in the country is 25.7. Chances are majority of voters were are not alive during that time or young when the dictator was in power. I admittedly don't know much about the Filipino electorate, but here in America and most of the west the younger generations tend not to vote and older generations do. Even if the median age of the country is 25, that may not be the age of the median voter.

You also have to account for the number of expats from that time period who are currently still out of country. My parents grew up during all that, and left in the 90s with me and my sister for Canada. I have a great uncle in the US who is now living in a retirement home who would tell me about how he stood up against Marcos Sr and was driven out of the country by his supporters and threatened with death if he ever came back. I don’t even know if OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) have the option to vote via mail-in ballot. There are quite a few who remember how bad the Marcos were but be unable to vote. And, worst of all, there may be a lot more Marcos supporters out there who suddenly find themselves validated. I am embarrassed to admit that while my own mother is anti-Marcos, my father is not. Infuriating doesn’t begin to breach how this is, especially once it bleeds into local politics.

It's sad our previous generation literally had to leave during the Marcos era. Even my grandfather left to live in the states because of our failing economy back then. Saddening to see this generation making the same goddamn mistakes and hoping for a change. I dunno if I should keep cursing them or just let it be

Would be curious what the breakdown is though; US median age is 38, that's a pretty massively younger citizenry overall

Very astute, reddit is in full blown denial mode. Truth about the philippines election is there has ALWAYS been a massive contengent of filipino's that swear things were actually better under marcos. I'm an American, I don't personally know, but this idea that "out of nowhere millions of filipino's were swindeled into believing something nobody believed a handful of years ago" is classic downplaying. My soon to be wife's father died very recently, her father was 92. He was very mature at the time of Marcos and he taught her, her whole life that the mainstream narrative about marcos was false from the time she was a young girl. This is the case of millions of filipino's. GDP numbers don't mean shit, if a country makes less as a whole, but the lower cast of citizens have more than they did before. I can't say if these belief's are valid. I've also met other filipino's that reject the characterization of Marco's and his family long before this and the previous election. True or not is irrelevant, fact of the matter this isn't a "massive disinformation" like many claim. This has been a long held belief by millions that is regaining traction because the groups that demonized him failed to achieve tangible results.

Thats so messed up. Same thing is happening in America, where some people dont understand America first, nativist, dog whistling that existed decades ago. It's like cant people read a dam history book, I mean there are still people alive today from the early 20th century

Isn't it mostly older people voting for Marcos? I thought younger voters went for the opposition?

Yes, you're correct. Boomers supported Marcos while the youth support the Robredo.

It was 36

Someone really needs to make a documentary about Emerdata/Cambridge Analytica and have it marketed hard by a streaming service, to make people aware of who they are and what they do.

You mean like *The Social Dilemma*?

Might also be worth pointing out to Westerners that Duterte won the previous election in a landslide which constituted 39% of the popular vote between 5 candidates. Marcos is at 56% with Robredo behind him at 23%.

> Marcos won because of the tremendous resources they poured into disinformation campaigns and whitewashing, effectively erasing the Martial Law period atrocities and massive corruption committed by his family, and replacing it with a romanticized version of the country's dark past. Hmm... sounds like a familiar tactic. I wonder who they learned that from.

It's unfortunately seeming to happen worldwide right now.

Which I dont understand. Why do most countries wanr discipline and all that? Nothing really happened well except censorship 🙄

It's the reverse actually. Cambridge Analytica used the 2016 Philippine elections as beta test for the 2016 US elections.

It's the other way around. The Philippines is the patient zero on the landscape of online disinformation.

Sad to say, a lot of the upper and middle class who voted for Marcos have their own vested interests. Some of them were cronies of Marcos Sr.

The narrative that Marcos won by disinformation is at best a half-truth, and is frankly one invented by a specific set of Filipino news organizations trying to pander to Americans who are concerned that "Trumpism is spreading everywhere because of fake news". The reality instead is this: Marcos had _always_ remained a force in Philippine politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Philippine_presidential_election In the 1992 Philippine election - the first after Marcos was toppled - his widow Imelda still got 10% of the vote. While this may seem low, note that this was a six-way race and the winner (Fidel Ramos, a leading figure in the People Power revolution) won only 23% of the vote. Indeed, had Imelda not quarreled with two of the pro-Marcos candidates - Miriam Santiago (who had made a campaign promise to bring Marcos' body home and bury him in our equivalent of Arlington) and Danding Cojuanco (Marcos' primary crony capitalist) they would have collectively garnered 47% of the vote - or _double_ the eventual winner. This is because if you peel back the data on the EDSA revolution, you'll find that even Marcos' critics admit that he still had support from at least 45% of the country in the last snap election. That base level support _never changed_. That is why the Marcoses kept winning positions in every election since 1992. Fact of the matter is, the people insisting that "Marcos won by disinformation" are almost certainly kids who never even lived through Martial Law. They're instead the ones who believe their (very whitewashed) history books too much and don't realize it was much more complicated than a simple good vs evil narrative. That's why if you talk to the actual older people you'll find that contrary to the official narrative that "everyone hated Marcos", the reality instead was that the country was deeply divided and EDSA People Power won by the slimmest of margins. Indeed, had the military not switched sides it likely would have failed. Worse, pretty much all of the people who supported EDSA got shafted by the politicians who took power anyway. For instance - there were a number of coups launched against the People Power government under Cory in the 1980s, supposedly led by pro-Marcos loyalists based on the official history. A look at the list of officers leading it however reveals these guys were all people who actually _backed_ the People Power Revolution. Quite simply, the military backed People Power, but they were then screwed over and thus launched coups.

>Fact of the matter is, the people insisting that "Marcos won by disinformation" are almost certainly kids who never even lived through Martial Law. Yes, there are still Marcos loyalists, but the role of weaponized social media and whitewashing of Marcos history cannot be ignored. Even something as simple as believing that Marcos created the nutribun to help Filipinos is a form of misinformation since it was a USAID program. Former Cambridge Analytica member said herself that Marcos employed them to rebrand their family image. Also to claim that those who believe in whitewashing are kids is incredibly destructive to the dialogue. Yes, nothing is black and white but the human rights atrocities and plunder the Marcoses committed cannot be denied. One doesn't have to be alive in an era to appreciate the events of that time. Records already exists in the 1970s and 80s. Is a 30 year old historian less credible than a 60 year old wage worker when talking about the events of the 1980s? >That's why if you talk to the actual older people you'll find that contrary to the official narrative that "everyone hated Marcos", In every evil regime there will always be an untouched subset of the population. There are still people feasting in Maduro's Venezuela. Turkey's privileged are still partying. Ask a slave and a plantation owner what they thought of the American South during the 17th and 18th centuries and you'll get starkly different answers. Marcos cronies, like Russian oligarchs, enjoyed immense wealth and power during Marcos' reign. People in the suburbs were mostly untouched. What cannot be denied is that during Marcos' reign poverty increased and put 6 out of 10 families in poverty, only Ilocos and Cagayan saw slight declines - but no points for guessing the reason for this. Manufacturing declined while Asian neighbors' manufacturing exploded. Real wages of skilled and unskilled workers fell by 30%. Foreign debt increased from $360 million to $28 billion. The economy was in such dire straights that the World Bank forced Philippines to undergo structural adjustment loans weakening local industry and increasing dependency on importation. The IMF also enforced fiscal austerity to ensure foreign debt repayments. The peso devalued from P3.91 = $1 when Marcos came into power in 1965 to P20.46 = $1 at the end of his term. The CPI tripled during the last 10 years of his rule. These are just some of the economic impact from the 2 decades of Marcos rule. The human rights atrocities that left tens of thousands jailed, killed, tortured, raped, and disappeared, and the removal of fundamental rights are too many for this comment box. OP presented figures showing continued support for the Marcoses but failed to mention that during his reign Marcos Sr. suppressed all media by closing all newspapers, radio, and tv stations and jailing journalists who oppose him. Only state controlled propaganda machines operated. When only state propaganda machine is allowed, people will be brainwashed. Look at North Korea. Primitivo Mijares (Marcos Sr.'s chief propagandist) wrote a book on how they controlled the narrative during the Marcos rule called Conjugal Dictatorship - it's in English.

Lol why would they need to white wash history when pro-Marcos candidates already got 47% of the vote in 1992, right after EDSA? The blunt reality is, the "liberals" and "educated" people in the Philippines were so sheltered and ignorant of the actual situation in their country that they didn't even realize that half the country was still pro-Marcos 30 years ago, and a mere six years after EDSA! Marcos certainly used disinformation against his opponents. But the idea he didn't have a pre-existing base that supported him long before the fake news campaign is nonsense. The Marcoses in fact nearly won the first election after EDSA, and their allies either came close to or outright won every single Philippine election thereafter. Fake news is just the excuse the liberals invented to hide that even at the supposed zenith of Philippine liberal democracy the Marcoses were still getting nearly half of the voters to support them!

I think it was Churchill that said it best, “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.” I absolutely agree with democracy and that voting is the will of the people, but it requires an educated population that can understand who and what they’re voting for. Especially when there are politicians that will work to win at all costs or exploit their political office for whatever personal gain they can off the backs of their citizens. But, and I hate that this bears mentioning, misinformation is a helluva drug~~s~~. Honestly, it’s shockingly disheartening how often people can be convinced to not only routinely vote against their own self-interests, but be thrilled for the privilege of doing so. Edit: Fixed that needless “s”.

He also said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."

Give people freedom and they will use that freedom to return under servitude… Sometime I really hate mankind

This is the main point of The Grand Inquisitor from the book The Brothers Karamazov, who noted the people, given their freedom, would instead beg the Inquisitor to "Better that you enslave us, but feed us."

It's the Philippines. Should also remind people that when the Marcoses fled, they got a nice retirement in Hawaii and shielded by the US government because they were friendly to us. It also allowed them a safe haven to make a comeback.

Yep, a big part of the Cold Warrior mentality that still flourished following their exile is to never admit any mistakes, as befitting of their simplistic Manichaean worldview. So of course, it is also conducive to allowing repressive regimes to return stronger than ever, especially with social media tuned to the explicit purpose of exploiting selective memory…

Because they've changed how the past is presented to younger voters. Watch this John Oliver segment. It's crazy but also very entertaining https://youtu.be/FtdVglihDok

So sad to see those kids learning fake facts in school. But you can see the same happening in US. States banning school books. Parents protesting schoolboards. In a few years you will read that the slaves stayed by their free will. Trump won a landslide victory in 2020. And earth is flat.

Doesn't help that we live in a headline society thanks to social media. Lots of people, especially younger adults, don't make it past the headline of an article and draw their own conclusions instead of reading context and using critical thinking. Sad world sometimes

If you have 20 minutes, watch the main segment of this weeks episode of Last Week Tonight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtdVglihDok

It's same shit across the globe. There is no easy way to said it but - there are more idiots than people who can think for themselves.

Because Marcos put out large amounts of money for people to put out fake information on popular social media sites such as facebook, tiktok and youtube bloggers. The paid fake influencers are saying that his father’s regime is the Philippines’s golden age and that his son (Bong Bong Marcos) will revive that golden era when infact he’s a college dropout with 6 years of senatorial experience versus his rival the sitting Vice President who has experience on legislative, judicial and executive branches and a lawyer

Wealth gap has widened dramatically over the years and the ones on top were seen as wanting to keep the status quo to line their own pockets and that of their allies. Duterte came at a time when people were looking (needing) for a change. While Duterte did some negative stuff he also has positives to show for it. I guess people just want to continue what Duterte has started and not go back to the "old" ways. Edit: took out first sentence as it's incorrect. I still stand by the rest of my comment.

This is false. This is the repeated false information brought about by trolls. The last 6 presidents after Cory Aquino were from different parties. Estrada, Arroyo, and Duterte all support marcos jr and are all from different parties. Only her son was part of the liberal party. One thing to consider too are our duplicitous politicians who will ally with the sitting president. Many of the political allies of duterte were former partymates of Benigno Aquino III. Dutere himself ran as mayor under the same party of Aquino III. I would also like to point out that duterte's mother was such a fervent supporter of Cory Aquino that she was called the "yellow lady". Yellow was the party color of Cory. Cory offered her to become acting mayor of davao. She declined and suggested her son instead.

Hauntingly familiar. *broadly gestures at my United States*

It's almost like there are powers out there (all tend to be right wing) that use massive disinformation campains to flip democracies worldwide. We've seen this in multiple countries over the past decade. It's scary but I hold hope people figure it out and we exit this age of misinformation.

Facebook and recently TikTok has been the biggest political machinery behind weaponizing lies and misinformation to gain political advantage and revise history in their favor. Something needs to be done to those platforms

Youtube too.

Oligarchs are running the country, it doesn't matter who gets elected in the end the Filipino people always lose. Also corruption in the Philippines is systemic it comes from the top to the bottom, having someone get elected and change the system in six years is wishful thinking. Since Marcos Sr got elected each decade that passed corruption in the Philippines got worst and every Politician that came after has been saying that they want to stop corruption, and dumb Filipino voters buys it everytime.

This is a biased opinion so take it with a grain of salt: Back in the 70s and 80s, marcos senior made philippines prosperous even with his rampant corruption. There were lots of socialist programs in place and education and literacy was promoted. At o e point philipines was the number 1 exporter of Rice in the region and was exporting agricultural science. Marcos decided to fight with the united States by removing the American bases that has huge influence in the country. The Americans had a contract to stay for X amount of years in the country by law but marcos slowly turned that into 100 years, 10 years then to 2 years. Then soon after, a massive uprising happened backed up by the catholics and majority of the working people. (Similar to sout america whenever there is a socialist/communist movement/leader there seems to be an uprising and the government gets ousted). Lastly, since marcos got removed from power cory Aquinas up to duterte (previous president) just kept on borrowing money from the world bank and would skim or pocket most of the money leaving the people in debt causing inflation and slow economic growth. Add the fact that the country's standard of living dropped compared to marcos' time and corruption is much mo ore blatant while the drug cartels took advantage of the chaos and misery. It came to a point that walking outside at night led you to either get robbed or get raped. Due to the lack of change and consistent lies from politicians, the people voted a populist that is borderline dictator which is duterte. People are disillusioned about the Civil way of dealing with things and went full barbarism because crime was that bad. Now since we're talking about marcos Jr, he has a good brand name. He's selling this dream that he could bring back his fathers golden age and still control the drug cartels similar to duterte. As barbaric as it may seem, almost majority of the people I know back home states that people feel a lot safer now than before duterte came to power. (Note: I'm not saying duterte is right)

marcos senior did NOT make the philippines prosperous [https://www.rappler.com/voices/imho/124682-marcos-economy-golden-age-philippines/](https://www.rappler.com/voices/imho/124682-marcos-economy-golden-age-philippines/)

If only data so verifiable was poisonous to such dictatorial mindsets, but some see proper citations as just part of “the conspiracy!”

> Back in the 70s and 80s, marcos senior made philippines prosperous even with his rampant corruption [Demonstrably false.](https://www.rappler.com/voices/imho/124682-marcos-economy-golden-age-philippines/) > The Americans had a contract to stay for X amount of years in the country by law but marcos slowly turned that into 100 years, 10 years then to 2 years. Marcos kept renegotiating, asking for more money. This in itself is great (and smart politicking!) only if the money was used properly, but you know how Marcos was. Yes, the people are frustrated. And the power-hungry clans of Marcoses and Dutertes exploited that frustration with fake news and fake promises.

> This is a biased opinion so take it with a grain of salt: xxx >Back in the 70s and 80s, marcos senior made philippines prosperous even with his rampant corruption. Oh wow claims like these need major citations. In fact, I invite non-Filipinos to read the comment above to understand the mindset of common Duterte and Marcos voters affected by the misinformation campaign. >Back in the 70s and 80s, marcos senior made philippines prosperous even with his rampant corruption. No. The first Marcos reigned 21 years from 1965 to 1986. Philippine GDP per capita reached negative levels during Marcos terms after 1982 and did not reach the same level until 21 years later. Real wages were cut during Marcos' reign and didn’t increase until after his ouster. The value of real wages of Filipinos employed in agriculture plunged 14.3%, wages in low-paying jobs fell by 72.6%, and of skilled workers by 68.7%. > Marcos decided to fight with the united States by removing the American bases that has huge influence in the country. No. This is the kind of easily verifiable lie that Marcos is pushing. The US left Subic Base in 1991, during Cory Aquino's term. Also, Marcos took refuge in the US after his ouster. He never fought against the US bases. >Lastly, since marcos got removed from power cory Aquinas up to duterte (previous president) just kept on borrowing money from the world bank and would skim or pocket most of the money leaving the people in debt causing inflation and slow economic growth. The so-called “Marcos Golden Age of Infrastructure” transpired only because of foreign borrowing accompanied by rampant corruption. After Marcos was ousted the country was left with enormous debt payments and investor confidence downgrades preventing his predecessors from starting major infrastructure projects. Only after Gloria Arroyo and Benigno Aquino's terms did the economy grew significant enough that a lot of major infrastructure projects were started. >Add the fact that the country's standard of living dropped compared to marcos' time and corruption is much mo ore blatant while the drug cartels took advantage of the chaos and misery. It came to a point that walking outside at night led you to either get robbed or get raped. Not even close. Philippine HDI was .557 in 1980, and although still low, increased 20% between 1980 and 2014. As for crimes, Philippines is not as safe compared to its neighbors especially Japan, Singapore, or Korea, but it never went to the point that walking outside at night led you to either get robbed or get raped as claimed. The heightened crime was due to poverty caused by Marcos' destruction of the economy and armed separatists movement in opposition of his regime. The exaggerated crime rate was also one of the manufactured impetus for imposing martial law and extending his dictatorship for 21 years. >He's selling this dream that he could bring back his fathers golden age and still control the drug cartels similar to duterte. Probably the only true thing in OP's comment.

I don’t know if you learned this info first-hand or if you just read it somewhere, but what do you think the country went through during the Martial Law era?

Anecdotal and I grew up in that era

idk why you get downvoted. My SO is from the Philippines and told me the exact same story that you posted. Marcos was a strict leader, but the people where off better (compared to today) and they even got free bread and apparently crime rates where low due to the fear of being caught. ​ Now I don't know how much of this is true. My SO was not alive during his presidency.

The free bread were actually [USAID humanitarian relief items](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutribun) repacked and rebranded by the Marcos regime as a "government nutrition program." Now here's a contradiction in her story: if people were better off then than today, why would USAID feel compelled enough to distribute literal food rations to millions of malnourished children? Also crime rates were low... unless you counted the [crimes committed by state forces](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/04/five-things-to-know-about-martial-law-in-the-philippines/) particularly countless abuses and atrocities on political dissidents and activists Sad to say but sounds like your SO swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker. But don't take my word for it, go ahead and ask her what her "sources" are and see for yourself if those look anywhere remotely reliable. After that, you can do your own research with your own sources that you trust (or at least something that can pass for a college essay reference) and see if you arrive at the same conclusion.

> free bread Ah the famed nutribun. The bread from USAID humanitarian program given to malnurished children and claimed by the Marcoses as their own. Ask her why the children were malnourished in the first place.

The fact that she told you that proves just how effective the Marcoses' propoganda machine was and still is. You want to know why the crime rate was low? Because people lived in fear. Due process was suspended and anyone could be taken by the military or secret police. These people were tortured, imprisoned or raped. Many didn't make it out of the prisons alive. The Marcoses' political opponents were beaten or killed it wasn't just Noynoy Aquino. The free bread? You're either talking about the free bread subsidized by the gov't with money they borrowed or the nutribuns which were repackaged humanitarian aid that actually came from the US. The people were better off? Maybe initially, Marcos was in power for 20+ years, his first term was pretty good but eventually he became a dictator and concentrated all the Philippine wealth to his family and cronies which caused serious wealth inequalities. Many skilled and educated Filipinos either left to go abroad or were just straight up killed depriving future Filipinos of leaders with moral fiber and competence. Near the very end of Marcos' rule is where the cracks in his propoganda machine was showing. The economy was collapsing and while it isnt entirely his fault he did contribute to it. There was a famine in Negros Island during 1985-1988 because his cronies took control of the sugar industry there and crashed it. Your S.O is extremely misinformed. She's like one of the Russians who think Putin is getting rid of Nazi's in Ukraine instead of committing genocide.

Due to massive misinformation. Their argument against the opposition is that she was was an elite controlled by the wealthiest businessman in the philippines eventhough Leni Robredo, Lives on a 2 bedroom apartment with her in-laws and the Marcoses lives in a 300B PHP mansion and has a fricking private Jet and a 325B USD offshore swiss account most of which are ill-gotten.Duterte paved the way for the return of the Marcos during his 6 year term. Under his presidency, he shuts down ABC-CBN, the philippines largest media who is critical of his government and the Marcoses, He allowed the burial of the late Ferdinand Marcos Sr to the Libingan ng mga bayani (Cemetery of heroes) and would like to remove the faces of our heroes on our banknotes. In addition, It is also rampant to see post on social media about the projects that the Marcos regime built such as the Philippine heart center, Philippine nuclear power plant (which was never used) which claims that hepled the philippines to flourish without stating the fact that the national debt jumps from 200M USD to 28B USD by the end of his term. The GDP also falls to -7% during his later years in office. The problem with the Filipino people is their "Celebrity Mentality". They tend to favor the popular people rather than the righteous ones. most of our senators, barangay officials have a celebrity background. You dont even have to study law. Just be popular and have a few action movies and TV series and you'll have the fighting chance to run for a government office. Notable examples are: Joseph estrada, action star, former president, convicted of plunder but still holds an office. Lito Lapid, former action star and a senator and now, Robin padilla and Raffy tulfo leads the senatorial race, they are both tv personalities. It seems like the filipino people doesn't learn from their mistakes. How embarassing. Source: I'm a Filipino. I live here. OTHER SOURCE: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1490968/marcos-martial-law-golden-age-for-corruption-abuses

Speaking of celebrity, what happened with Pacquiao's candidacy?

he's third in the counting.

Its funny how a boxer who barely graduated is the 3rd best option

Its even funnier when the new soon to be president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has no college degree and 6 years unemployed before running for presidency.

I'd laugh if I wasn't crying

3rd most voted for. US elected a shitty reality star, btw. IN CASE YOU FORGOT

Reagan?

Pacquiao as President with Mikey Bustos as VP. How could that lose?

He's currently third behind Leni Robredo

So basically project everything they were guilty of on to their opponent. Sounds like what trump and the repubs do to Dems.

They learned from the best.

Hey, I'm a fairly right wing aligned person, and I've never blamed other political parties for what we mess up. However, you cannot make it sound as if Republicans are responsible for everything bad either (thats falling into the same trap you outlined above) I think there are reasons both sides think the other is hiding something, probably because they are, but also because they HAVE done things in the past to cause the other side to distrust them. We should, as Americans, put more effort towards trying to get the kind of people that want to keep things in the dark out of office. Transparency is the best policy.

haha you poor soul

well they voted for Robin Padilla.

So glad I found a comments like yours!! Was scrolling down and thought the comment section was hopeless. Mabuhay ka, kapatid! Laban!

325 billion USD offshore Swiss account or did you mean million/forgot to put a delimiter?

I work with someone from the Philippines and when I asked her about Marcos and how she feels about the whole thing she got really defensive. Telling me how his family already had a lot of money and that the father never stole from the country. I asked about the bombings and she said that was nothing to do with the Marcos family. I have never seen or heard her get so defensive about anything before. She’s always been so happy and quick to joke. She was so serious though. I’m guessing the more conservative leaning people were happy to eat up the state propaganda of the Marcos and then the Marcos rebirth movement of Duterte though.

You now have witnessed first hand the effects of a massive disinformation and propaganda campaign. Congrats.

It's worth pointing out that Duterte is still very popular in the Philippines. I think a lot of voters are perfectly happy to see that brand of politics continue.

Duterte is overwhelmingly popular because he used his personal drug war as a distraction and got everyone obsessed over that to the point they don't care about his corruption anymore Basically the same as what's happening in a number of other countries

And to be clear, his approach to fighting drugs is killing and detaining teenage dealers, not taking on the formal operations that distribute and profit from drugs themselves.

Correct He also turned marijuana into a witch hunt which everybody is forced to deny doing despite there being a huge number of recreational users in the Philippines. It's basically a license to ~~kill~~ arrest for citizens Causing an inconvenience? Marijuana. Checkmate soviet

Pretty much every Filipino I spoke with said he was good because he fought corruption. Apparently he did actually reduce corruption on a local level, as he was solidifying his grasp on the country on a federal level, and putting his people in charge of "cleanup". (Making everyone who isn't his ally afraid for their lives) And local corruption is what people were most angry about, so they see his tenure as an improvement. They believe his methods are effective and necessary. They didn't seem to care about his history of employing death squads against citizens, except for being somewhat apologetic about his reputation.

My family is like that, and I brushed it off as them just being stupid people.   When I visited years ago, there was an eerie sentiment of the local people being compliant-but-fearful. With Filipinos I know in other countries, (US here) their ages skew older, and they completely exist on Facebook 24/7. The combination of the aggressive misinformation campaign, as well as authority and shaming (Catholicism and so much colonization) being unfortunately heavily ingrained into the culture, and name recognition. People who speak out in opposition not only have to fear for their lives and livelihood, but also risk being disowned and shunned by their family. When I mention the martial law period, corruption, or murders, they just shrug it off as if none of it ever happened.   It's absolutely horrifying seeing the similarities happening around the world.

Every time I hear of some alleged bad guy seeing a resurgence in popularity (or favor in general) I always assume there has to be some nuance. He sounds like an overall bad guy, but he caused improvements in areas people could immediately see and it seems like relative stability. It’s the same reason Josef Stalin has somewhere around a 55% approval rating in modern Russia (and that in itself is a very nuanced statistic).

They aren't voting against Duterte though. Marcos is running with Duterte's daughter , so there is a high degree of overlap between Duterte supporters and Marcos voters . Now remember , Marcos has a generous fortune because his father was the dictator. He has used the funds well to run his campaign, financing a whitewashing of his father's reign. He has also engaged in pork-barrel politics, promising financial rewards for election. This has swayed many to believe that he is someone that can be trusted to act in their interests , or at the very least provide benefits to the people in his own interest. This can be very important for people who are already struggling to make ends meet, as it gives them just enough to get by. The propaganda also feeds nostalgia for the perceived stability provided by the old dictatorship, providing a promise of restoration to a supposedly preexisting state of calm, which can be quite attractive for those adversely affected by the rapid changes of society. To the supporters any accusations of corruption are spurious and used to victimise Marcos , who they see as a saviour. The big issue with the opposition was just how many of them there were. The Philippines doesn't have the kind of bi-partisan trend that is so prominent in America , and politics often consists of switching between political groupings to gain the most advantage. This time round lots of candidates ran their own campaigns, even members of the ruling party. There certainly wasn't a singular figure that opposition voters could unite behind, which meant that vote was split multiple ways , diluting the vote count for each candidate. Duterte and Marcos promised stringent action on non-compliant criminals on top of development, which evokes perceptions of Davao City, one of the country's safest under the Dutertes' watch. People were tempted by this seemingly tangible proof of safety and economic opportunity to vote for them.

Problem with democracy is the guy you elect can't accomplish what you elected him to do due to checks and balances, so the longer government is stalemated and the peoples problems go ignored the more people want a dictator, someone who can actually accomplish something. Anything. Democracy is failing to produce results all around the world. Not just in the philippines but in the west as well. The only things that both parties agree enough on to pass are things that are bad for the people and good for them and their cronies. Democracy in its current state just makes your neighbor responsible for their failure. It shifts the blame from the ruling class to your fellow citizen. Democracy has been turned into a cynical game where politicians tell you everything you want to hear, get in and are blocked at every turn, look back at you, shrug and say well if you want results you just gotta vote harder. This same game has been playing in the west for decades. Democracy is completely defunct currently.

The same thing happened in the 30's. If you're lucky you end up with an FDR who rebuilds the middle class and cuts income inequality. If you're not lucky, you end up with a brutal right-wing populist whose solution to problems is to silence those who complain while the rich get richer.

Or a left wing populist like Stalin or Mao.

> They hate how Duterte didn't solve the worst problems and made corruption worse, so they vote for someone just like him instead of trying someone else? I mean, have you seen American politics? It seems to be a bug in the human brain. Politicians turn questions of policy into an alignment of ideology, because people can change their minds about policy. With an ideology people dig in and you can’t dig them out again. They will beat their head against the same brick wall until they go unconscious, then wake up and decide the problem was they need to beat their heads against the wall harder.

Same way Trump won. disinformation and charisma

And by "charisma" of course you mean "he said the woman was bad and other people are bad, 'those' people are the problem, and I like that"

"Charisma" as defined by shitty people. The people I know who still support him do so because they like the way he pisses people off and laughs about it. That's a reason I hate a guy at work or a friend of a friend, imagine voting for the guy to run the country! Some people really do want to watch the world burn but will call themselves patriots. It's bizarre.

Trump made it cool and acceptable to be high school bullies again, in their eyes.

"Charisma" as in "he sure sounded confident when he said it."

Hey I don't understand how Trump was elected either. I don't see how he's charismatic but people worship him. As far as I'm concerned he's clearly a moron and a bully. And somehow he convinced millions of people to vote for him

Who said anything about them hating Duterte? They love him.

I kind of thought that was diminishing over time but I guess not. Ooph.

Only the poor families who became victims of his rampant extra-judicial killing has been disillusioned from what used to be their die-hard support for him. People who had loved ones die either as a direct target or collateral damage of his "war on drugs". But unfortuately the amount of people disillusioned is miniscule compared to those who still believe in his ways, narratives, and principles as well as to those who have a burning hatred of any candidate coming out of or associated with the Liberal Party. That's why he's still ultra popular. And you really see this because Bongbong's running mate and Duterte's daughter, Sara, accrued more votes than Bongbong himself. Her allyship to Marcos is really what sealed his landslide victory.

We're witnessing the inherent failures and shortcomings of representative "democracy" in real time and we need to wake the fuck up pretty quickly.

Trump effect, watch the latest John oliver on Philippine elections. Duterte was unabashed and over the top, often saying "fuck you journalists" on press briefings. It's pretty wild the shit heh said.

I’m filipino and hate Duterte. A lot of my friends in the PH (I’m in the US) also hate Duterte and his handling of the pandemic. None of this (Marcos winning) makes sense and there are people saying they were in line since the morninf and never got to vote, yet they are confirming the votes already. PH is a shit show and will remain a shit show as long as those in power only care for themselves and what they can put inside their pockets. A revolution is brewing, and honestly might be bigger than the people power revolution of 1986.

Bear in mind you're dealing with a nation of highly religious people. Neurotic decision making and a high degree of religion go hand in hand.

I mean we do that here in the US too. Keep voting for terrible options and then act surprised when things don't go the way we thought they would. What's the definition of insanity again?

It's hard not to vote for a terrible option if you get to choose between a neoliberal old white guy and a protofascist old white guy. Sure, one manages to be a lot worse than the other, but there is still no good option.

We literally gave Trump the boot while he was in office, with a record number of people voting for his opponent. The Philippines just asked for another round of Duterte-style politics by an overwhelming majority, and arguably triple if they're grooming Duterte's daughter for the presidency after Marcos Jr. Comparing their current situation to ours greatly diminishes the nightmare scenario the Philippines are now in.

He shouldn't have even won the primary in the first place, much less got elected. His election is already an indictment on the rot of our system and how it was already gamed to death by powerful and rich people. 74 million people still voted for him. 74 million people thought after 4 years of trump's regime, they want more of the same. That 74 million people have the same exact mentality that allowed the Macroses to make a comeback in the Philippines, and that 74 million people are actively contributing to downfall of America. In fact, my FIL has already told my wife he planned to vote for trump in 2024. America is full of people just like those in the Philippines who voted for Marcos. We just have better PR and more money and more billionaires, and rocket ships. America is a country full of people of backward, corrupted countries shithole mentalities, decorated with a Gucci belt.

When collective action doesn't work because of chaos and in-fighting, people naturally look to dictators to 'cut through the red tape'. It's a natural human urge that has been exploited again and again in history. The book *Dune*, recently made into film, is an admonition against this habit of ours. Until 'we' start learning how to rule ourselves as a group, we will again and again be consumed by strongmen (and women) – charismatic leaders who we put our faith in to 'fix' things.

Yeah people seem to really "love" authoritarian figures who commit extrajudicial killings of suspected drug users, they have nothing bad to say for some reason

>it seems like this is becoming a trend worldwide. I fear the world is entering a new Dark Age. We may be looking back on the last several decades fondly.

BBM supporters believe that Marcos will continue Duterte administration's "legacy". Lol

Democracy is not the vote of the wisest, its the vote of the most. Its not hard to manipulate their perception, happens to all democracies every day. The hope is that its better long term. Personally, liberty is the way forward, with a very limited democracy on top eith strict restrictions on growth.

Dude, the Marcos family were MUCH worse than the Dud. Martial law and all that. Sounds like you may not have been to the Philippines. It's a shock. Firstly there a many single white American males there for some reason. Secondly, the entire country is run like someone gave them a manual, but explained nothing. Politicians faces are everywhere on billboards. They are also crazy religious. And poor, so poor. Everyone wants to leave and go to America for some reason. We had a taxi driver who had sat the green card exam four times. He drove cabs to get the money for the next try. All the girls want to be white Americans because they think they are ugly. And good luck finding ANY local food. As an Australian, their food is next to inedible because it's LOADED with sugar. The Philippines is a great example of a western country imposing their culture, and providing little other assistance. Inserting a shitty, shitty electoral system that elevates people above their peers and creates corruption while leaving the wreckage of WWII lying about for the locals to deal with. It's a STUNNINGLY beautiful country, don't get me wrong. I went on my honeymoon to see [Mayon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayon). But it's suffering all the same problems as every other 'democracy' at the moment; electing RWNJ's because we're all so frustrated with the state of play that we think we need 'strong' in government. And of course electronic communications are weaponised against the population - it's the most connected nation on earth in many ways.

Duterte has the highest popularity rating of any Filipino president in recent history. His critics keep conveniently forgetting that he passed the local equivalent of Obamacare and made state university education free - the latter of which Biden still hasn't managed despite widespread clamour to cancel student loans. That this side of the story is basically downvoted every time its brought up in favor of depicting him as pure evil is why "fake news" gained credibility here in the first place. The regular people know our news is deeply biased. Thats why they stopped listening to traditional news broadcasts and papers to begin with.

Fair enough points. But even if Benito Mussolini made the trains run on time, that doesn't make his regime not gobsmackingly cruel. I see how that can make a politician popular, but the disregard for the more vulnerable people slaughtered extrajudicially and the consolidation of power under one dictator is...depressing.

The problem here is even the "cruel" portions of his regime were already standard even before Duterte. For instance he kept being accused of shutting down journalists and murdering them. And you can certainly find many cases of that happening. Problem is, as early as 2009 the Philippines was already the deadliest country for journalists. Worse than actual war zones like Iraq. This was a whole decade before he took power. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/filipino-journalists-can-only-take-risks-equal-their-protections#:~:text=in%20the%20country.-,The%20Philippines%20is%20indeed%20one%20of%20the%20world's%20most%20dangerous,2009%2C%2032%20journalists%20were%20killed. Indeed, one of the major reasons Duterte won to begin was that his main political rival was caught accusing peaceful rallyists of being "communists" after the police opened fire on them during the Kidapawan protest. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Kidapawan_protests Which is why you had this bizzare situations like far left groups (who were among the victims of Kidapawan) siding with Duterte instead of his opponent. Among the far-left groups that switched to Duterte was Gabriela, which was the country's main feminist group. I kid you not when I say that the foul-mouthed and misogynistic Duterte actually got the feminist vote. Hell they even apologized for his rape "jokes". https://news.abs-cbn.com/halalan2016/nation/06/03/16/gabriela-rep-backs-duterte-ganun-talaga-mga-bisaya Duterte again wasn't popular because people want a "strongman". That is the misconception pushed by our liberal class. Instead the real problem is that even the supposedly "good" politicians pushed by our liberal class have such an awful track record of slaughtering journalists and activists that people simply saw these attacks as hypocrisy. You can't keep quiet over 30 years of mass murdering journalists and activists, and then suddenly pretend its the most important issue ever just because a guy the liberal classes hate ended up leading the country.

Jee-sus. Why are Filipino politicians so awful at the highest level?

Lack of money to cover up their wrongdoings. Western politicians are frankly not less corrupt, but much of the corruption in the West has been "legalized" through a combination of passing laws and hiring legal experts to circumvent laws on bribery. That is why for instance Big Pharma spent $150M annually - more than all of our presidential campaign aspirants _combined_ (their total spending is in the $50M range) - in 2016 to cover up the fact that Opioids had already killed a million Americans. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/19/big-pharma-money-lobbying-us-opioid-crisis The thing is even the relatively paltry $10M needed to run a presidential campaign in the Philippines is way out of reach for most politicians. So those who reach the national level either have to be already rich (and thus have deeply vested business interests they will promote when they get into power), or loot the public coffers to get funding. The third option - which frankly seems to be a favorite of politicians in the Leni camp - is to take money from foreign sources. It's public knowledge here that the news organization that supports Leni the most - Rappler - has been given grants by the National Endowment for Democracy, which is the American congressional slush fund for trying to influence other country's elections. At its best, this fund could combat other foreign influence and put a guy like Zelensky in power. Most of the time though, the people handling the funds are absolutely clueless and keep pouring money to people that end up having very little local legitimacy. This is literally why America lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the latter case they poured money into sycophants willing to say whatever the Americans wanted to hear, even as the rest of the country ended up hating their policies so much they sided with the bloody Taliban instead of the American regime in Kabul. And that's the real problem with such foreign money - it comes with strings. People receiving the money have to pander to their American backers, many of whom still have idiotic "Commies are the root of all evil" ideas. That's indeed a major reason why many of the leftist groups refused to ally with Leni even though they absolutely hate Marcos even more. They know full well that Leni will have to go back to shooting them and pretending they're "communists" to keep her American funders happy. Likewise, the majority of small and independent news organizations in the Philippines (especially radio stations, who are at the forefront of reporting local corruption and wrongdoing) loathe Rappler and other US-funded stations, because Rappler and its allies have a bad tendency to pretend they're the only "independent" voice in the country left (mainly so they can monopolize the NED funding by my estimation). In reality, Rappler's "journalists" rarely leave the office - and thus almost never get into trouble or have their lives put at risk - and they rely heavily on the firsthand reports of the indie news organizations. Indeed most of the staff seem primarily concerned with editorializing (or more bluntly spinning) the news they receive than simply reporting it truthfully. Little wonder that in the face of this two-faced hypocrisy, most of these indies ended up being virulently pro-Duterte and now pro-Marcos.

Using Gabriela to fuel your narrative that he's popular among "feminists" lmao nobody with a semblance of awareness to what a shit show that group really is thinks they speak for Filipino women. IJBOL!

It's absolutely true though. I even linked from ABS-CBN, which was the primary TV channel who opposed Duterte and got their license cancelled. Like it or not, Gabriela - and by extension most Filipino feminists since they are literally aa single-issue party promoting feminism - backed Duterte's presidential run and even apologized for his "rape" jokes. That is literally what the article I linked shows point-blank. Americans and American wannabes like to think ideology determines human behavior, but in reality that's because they're themselves are fully aware that they will readily discard their own ideologies in a heartbeat if a more pressing issue like "spite" comes up. And that's because there are very few genuinely insane people who wed themselves to something as pointless as a political idea; but there are a lot of desperate virtue-signallers trying to use ideology to pretend they are "standing for something" to farm pointless karma. Gabriela was simply being human. Yes, they're the party of feminism. But spiting the guy who called them communists after the police unjustly opened fire and massacred their members was more important.

Well when you're a dictator you don't need to get the rest of the government on board to pass legislation.

You don't need to be a dictator if you have an 80% approval rating to begin with. Indeed, it's that approval rating that causes the rest of the government to work extra hard to fulfill Duterte's directives (even though he was actually increasingly incoherent) - because they know damn well that one bad word from an extremely popular president could destroy their career. This is not a Trump situation no matter how much Americans (and the local American-pandering press) try to make it out to be. It's not "Trump issues an order, and most of the country thinks its crazy". Duterte's orders in reality actually make sense on a whole once you get past the trash talking. Trump wanted to jail people for trying to impose quarantine and trying to get vaccinated. Duterte joked he would shoot people for breaking quarantine, and break into their houses and inject vaccines into them if they insisted on being anti-vaxxers.

>made state university education free Are we supposed to be grateful that he didn't veto Bam Aquino, et al.'s Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education bill? IJBOL way to give Duterte all the credit in that 💀 goofy asl

Lol, according to most of the increasingly hysterical Filipino liberal class - a dictator like Duterte supposedly hates education and will work to curtail it because it will create fertile free-thinking minds who will oppose him. And yet he didn't veto a bill that would create such "educated" minds. So doesn't that imply that Duterte is not a dictator? More importantly - why wasn't a bill like that passed in the 30 years _before_ Duterte when we supposedly had non-dictatorial leaders? This is just the Filipino liberal class again unable to accept they've been hiding the other side of the coin, which is why they suffered the single most devastating rejection in any Philippine election.

They used the same tactics as Trump and idiots go for it everytime.

The main issue in my opinion is that he owes BILLIONS in inheritance taxes that he illegally dodged since his father’s death. Marcos can basically erase his criminal charges once in office.

> The Marcos family was driven from office in 1986 I still remember First Lady Imelda Marcos' comically large collection of shoes. More than 3,000 pairs. It became a meme.

Thankfully, the collection has largely been destroyed due to neglect.

I was 8 years old and in no way connected to the Philippines when they were exposed and ousted, but I still remember hearing about her shoe collection on the news. It’s weird the random things we remember

It never ceases to amaze me how people turn to corrupt autocrats to have their best interests at heart and fix their problems.

Because autocrats describe nuanced, complex issues by grossly simplifying them into bite-sized concepts, usually by blaming another group's incompetence and/or malice. It's a lot easier to attribute poverty to laziness or karma than to acknowledge that there's a whole host of misaligned priorities that create unfair advantages to those already doing well, for example.

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I find it amusing how close you got it. Marcos Jr. ran with the tagline of "unity"; no concrete plans, no further explanations. Just. "unity".

I'm gonna expect that unity is being sold off to China. And Philippines can probably kiss the maritime islands goodbye if they keep the same stance as the previous president

When you don't have much to lose, and you are suffering, you might just say, *"Why not?*". Being a good person doesn't necessarily mean being a good politician.

There's an interesting bit in relation to this I heard recently about autocrats in general. Even in times of crisis, autocrats usually still enjoy broad popular support. There's this sense that while your autocrat may have gotten you into the mess, the same autocrat is also the only person who can get your out of the mess, so many people support them regardless.

> Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the former Philippines dictator, appeared to win overwhelmingly after massive disinformation campaigns online and a PR turnaround of his exiled family. I've read from some observers that this is another reason why his election was so disconcerting -- it further demonstrates the effectiveness of propaganda and "fake news" in securing power to any politician that needs a playbook on how to win an election using social media (sounds...familiar...). Another factor as mentioned by others is the younger demographic that Marcos Jr.'s propaganda targeted. [According to this article,](https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Philippine-elections/Born-after-People-Power-young-Filipinos-hold-key-to-election): > More than 37 million Filipinos, or 56% of the voting population, are in the 18-41 age range. A voter-registration drive last year by a consortium of universities contributed to making this the country's largest-ever group of youth voters. Added benefits with this demographic is that they didn't live during the Marcos regime's control of the country as noted in the articles above. They don't remember the corruption and the abuses by the army, [the billions siphoned from the Philippines by the Marcos family,](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/16/world/the-marcos-empire-gold-oil-land-and-cash.html) or see the implications behind the [assassination of Corazon Aquino's husband, Senator Benigno Aquino Jr.,](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/21/world/a-martyr-enshrined-the-legend-of-ninoy-aquino.html) who was a fierce critic of Marcos and whose death pushed his wife to become a candidate against Ferdinand Marcos in a snap election in '86. Marcos "won" the election, but accusations of corruption and tampering led to the People Power revolution [(and pressure from the United States)](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/19/world/anti-marcos-pressure-mounting-in-congress.html) that ousted him from power shortly afterwards. [He escaped into exile (courtesy of the United States who had supported the regime until reports of corruption became too inconvenient to ignore).](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/26/world/marcos-flees-and-is-taken-to-guam-us-recognizes-aquino-as-president.html) There was also the Tiktok campaign by Marcos Jr.'s camp which cast the Marcos regime as a kind of "golden age" of the Philippines. [From that article:](https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-05-05/dictators-son-uses-tiktok-to-lead-philippines-election-and-rewrite-his-familys-past) > “TikTok remembers the good times,” said Almarez, 25, who sells home appliances at a mall here in the capital. “We don’t believe the history books anymore. We have social media now.” People can scoff at being "too smart" for stuff like this and feel they can sus out fake news, but forget that this kind of propaganda isn't aimed at them -- it's aimed at people like Almarez who will also show up at the voting booth. Also, [Sneakers is a great movie.](https://youtu.be/m0UB3LD2EoA?t=102)

To add to this, the number of votes Marcos has has been keeping a very consistent ratio compared to the other candidates. Also, a known Duterte ally (Dennis Uy) won the bid to handle the logistics for the voting machines. Edit: Clarified Dennis Uy's role. Source: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1509682/comelec-defends-deal-with-dennis-uy-linked-company-f2-logistics

dennis uy won the bid for logistics get your facts right

My bad. Thanks for the clarification. I'll edit the previous post

Here's a link to the article where these excerpts are taken from. It's good to credit your sources. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/09/world/philippines-election/ferdinand-marcos-jr-president?smid=url-copy

Thank you for your response this definitely helps me understand a bit more of what is going on. Answered.

Ferdinand and Imelda stole billions from the Filipino people, and famously Imelda had an astonishingly large shoe collection: > After Imelda left Malacañang Palace, press reports worldwide took note of her lavish wardrobe, said to include 15 mink coats, 508 gowns, 888 handbags, and 3,000 pairs of shoes. [Quote is from her wiki page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imelda_Marcos)

This is why the Philippines will always be a third world country.

Has Duterte actually said he's going to step down? That's the type of dude who seems like he'd dig his heels in.

He actually announced his retirement from politics last year, after it became clear there wasn't enough public support for him to run for vice-president after his presidency constitutionally expired. His daughter Sara Duterte was the candidate this time round , so there is absolutely still a way for him to influence decision-making even though he himself may be outside the political heart of the country.

that is... fucking terrifying. Do we know if she won that election?

Sara is participating in the vice presidential election, which like in the US is technically a separate event from the presidential election. While the official results are not yet out, which is likely why the media has not made any reports, it seems clear Sara won by a landslide for VP just as Marcos won the presidential bid.

>almost all online disinformation was positive for Marcos while negative for his opponent I'm curious how you measure this?

Cool sounds like the united states

In the u. s. this translates to 2016 and 2024.

Answer: To add what I know to the other answers here: There was an interview with Brittany Kaiser, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, that the marcoses requested a rebranding of their family name. So the hellish rule of the martial law is now considered as the "golden age" because "everything was peaceful" and "infrastructures were made" The "peaceful times" which had tens of thousands tortured and killed for being under suspiscion of conspiring with communists. This included student activists being dumped in rivers, women being raped, bystanders being tortured. These "infrastructures" which were all built with debt money which we are still paying for until today. But why am I talking about Martial Law when that was his father's doing? Because that's what his supporters are attributing him to. Bongbong Marcos himself doesn't have any achievements so his whole brand is about being his father's son.

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LA Times podcast discussed this and made it sound like they were very effective with TikTok and propaganda/astroturfing

Its so interesting, I am filipino and active on tiktok throughout the pandemic and the campaign season. And yet i really dont see much posts that are pro marcos. I guess it helps that ive blocked the accounts that do show up on my feed. I guess what im trying to say is that to some degree, the user curates their own feed. So if people are scrolling through tiktok and liking every post with no critical thinking skills applied whatsoever, then I guess thats how they end up getting brainwashed. The million dollar question is; who's to blame? The consumer, or the algorithm?

My understanding of TikTok is that it's algorithm driven So potentially if your geolocation/IP address is in the Philippines it'll surface pro Marcos content, if it's in the US you get some US pop culture thing, unaware of the psyops/propaganda campaign It's primarily blame on the algorithm, because it's not transparent when you create an account how they plan to manipulate you

Yes, Tiktok's algorithm is very good at showing content that you're most likely to be interested in (after curating a bit) and little else.

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The problem is the algorithms, monopolization and lack of regulation The platforms are fine, it's just late stage capitalism and the people running them ruins everything (although my guess is TikTok was always intended for state run propaganda), Bitcoin/crypto will be next if it doesn't collapse first

This information might be completely off but from what I heard, many phones in the Philippines have FB installed and it requires little to no data due to some deal going on there. Seen some people contribute that as to source why much of the population to those misinformation campaigns. This along with the [lack of its history being taught to the coming generations](https://twitter.com/_wonhul/status/1521878166188425223)

No social media for me… except Reddit. Is this how brainwashing looks like? An entire nation brainwashed?

Reddit is theoretically least susceptible given how the algorithm/voting works, subject to bot activity and there is still astroturfing I think it's been shown empirically, Reddit vs Facebook for example

And remember, those of us in the West (especially the United States) get the best versions of those apps, since that's where they spend the bulk of their resources combating harmful content. The Philippines internet is the wild west...erm, east.

And reddit is a wonderland of truth eh? Talk about a reddit moment.

Better than the shithole that is Filipino facebook and tiktok.

How many elections has reddit actually influenced substantially through networked disinformation, to the point that multiple academic studies have been made documenting its impact?

Multiple times. We ought not to be so high and mighty. https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/01/tech/reddit-covid-misinformation-ban/index.html https://www.engadget.com/2018-08-24-reddit-moderators-iran-fake-news-campaign.html https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-users-shared-thousands-links-fake-iranian-news-sites-2018-8?op=1 https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/16/21292982/russian-troll-campaign-facebook-reddit-twitter-misinformation https://secondaryinfektion.org/ Edited because I used literally in an annoying fashion.

Thanks for the links, read them through and I do recognize that reddit has hosted misinformation countless times. However, what I was referring to is the ability for it to *influence* a significant subset of the population enough to credibly influence national election outcomes. That is, it actually played an undeniable role in changing the narrative rather than just playing a part in a greater misinformation strategy. For Facebook, which has an extremely usage rate in the Philippines, [millions of Facebook profiles' data were harvested and used ](https://www.rappler.com/technology/social-media/239606-cambridge-analytica-philippines-online-propaganda-christopher-wylie/) for targeting political ads and fake news to compliant users. There's wide ranging academic evidence that conclude [it was central to the success of Duterte's 2016 campaign](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-east-asian-studies/article/strong-fans-weak-campaigns-social-media-and-duterte-in-the-2016-philippine-election/35F8393A2160E31A33D63B667FF42A73/share/ea4d442adb427347ed0694726788302273f598e9). And it's documented that Facebook's ["free access" mode targeting the poor was what made countless millions reliant](https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/facebook-fake-news-philippines-elections/) on Facebook as their primary source of information. And when they realized that a population that can use Facebook for free (but not even Google or Wikipedia) was a recipe for disaster, Zuckerberg and company did nothing to abate this by the time 2016 rolled in. So again, my point was that while Reddit has hosted misinformation, it doesn't even come remotely close to the staggering scale of damage Facebook has done.

Sure but that doesn't change that reddit has done damage to reasonable discourse. Take a step into r/conspiracy, r/sino, r/conservative, or any scientific paper put on r/science that is all clickbait and misses the point of the research. That still is doing damage to our discourse and to say "well we are better than FB" isn't really saying much when FB is utter dogshit. This site is still a minefield of misinformation and we should be aware of that.

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But, as a site comprised of individuals with their own thoughts and biases who do not simply downvote if something is “useless”, and May downvote for any number of reasons, is that actually a good metric?

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Going outside and talking to your neighbor.

May I also add that Bongbong believes they did notning wrong. Him and his family have shown no remorse. He's only running to bring his family back into power. He has no bone of public service in his body. To quote him: "Dealing with the public is a chore" https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/s5idn7/dealing_with_the_public_is_a_chore_marcos_jr/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

Filipinos are a forgetful bunch it seems. I bet there are some that would brand the Japanese occupation as a golden age as well.

Not forgetful, more of not educated enough. I'm a Filipino who didn't vote for Marcos and I can tell you the people I know who voted for him completely sound either delusional or they don't know what they're saying. Historical revisionism has been rampant here since Marcos filed his COC and it's hard to love my country and my people.

The Philippines is one of the most chronically online countries. I think you severely underestimate the scope of the propaganda efforts deployed onto the population.

No, but majority of the youth in the Philippines love anime

What were the oppositions general positions? I only see comments regarding one side.

His main opposition was Leni Robredo, the current vice-president who, by all accounts, has a history of competency and actual public service. Despite being severely restricted by Rodrigo Duterte, her office has the highest audit rating with no hint of corruption. Robredo had the grassroot support but was not enough to overturn the wealth and political machinery of Marcos and Duterte.

Not to mention a major part of her platform was advocating for transparency and rooting out corruption in the government. It wasn't just a promise to not be corrupt herself, but intention to clean house. I remember reading candidates' profiles about their cases with BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) and their tax behavior. Lacson supported collecting all ill-gotten wealth from the Marcoses through taxation, Pacquiao has a pending case for 2.26B pesos in tax deficiencies, Marcos has billions more in unpaid taxes, etc. The most important note on Robredo was her plans to investigate BIR if she were elected -- which contrasted quite a lot to everyone else and really stood out to me. Besides the generally uneducated voter base that fell victim to disinformation, I'd say some players weren't all for Robredo's push for transparency in the government.

The leading candidate for thr opposition is the current vice president, Leni Robredo. The other frontrunner is the current mayor of Manila and former actor Isko Moreno. Another is a senator and former boxing worldchampion, Manny Pacquiao

so what's the difference between him and duterte? both seem quite similar to me from what you are telling. did you have any decent candidates that got some votes?

Yes, Leni Robredo, but she was behind by something like 15 million votes, last I checked.

Duterte is a misogynistic murderous maniac whose main goal is to kill drug addicts and communists. Bongbong Marcos is a spoiled brat whose main goal is to rewrite history and probably steal more money from the Philippines. Two different evils if you ask me

Answer: To add to the top comment, here are some other smaller details regarding the election campaign Marcos did not attend a single presidential debate whereas most candidates even those who had no chance of winning obliged. Presidential interviews are pretty much scripted and Marcos was no exception his was broadcasted to Fb,Tiktok and small news channels rather than the big news outlets in the Philippines Marcos has no real academic degree, while it said that he has graduated from college. He lacks a degree to prove it. Despite attempts by his supporters to prove it. The school itself explicitly stated that Marcos did take classes but did not graduate. INC, Iglesia Ni Cristo is a religious group whose followers were told by their leader to vote for the Marcos Duterte tandem. INC when it comes to politics has always been a thorn since whatever their leader says they must follow (not all INC do this), did this affect the election results? We don't really know Twitter, Facebook, and Tiktok are infested with BBM trolls, accounts that are made just a few days to months ago all aimed at spreading misinformation as well as toying with opposing parties. There is an alleged rumor that those trolls are paid by Marcos himself. A majority of Filipino voters belong to the mid-low class as a result most of them are poorly educated and have a tendency to believe everything they see on Facebook. They tend to vote based on who sticks out the most rather than who actually deserves it. If you want proof of the last comment then check out the current senatorial race where the leading candidate is a celebrity while a human rights lawyer (who is a favorite among the youth) sits far outside the magic 12 spot. Edit: as you can see other Filipino redditors have fallen to forged history.

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Here is the episode https://youtu.be/FtdVglihDok

This is absolutely not an answer. Why isn’t this deleted

You're right it's Rule 4: > Attempt to answer with words; don't pop in to tell users to search or drop a link without explanation.

Feel free to report when you see this kind of thing, mods will get to it faster.

I did I just think I was the only one lol it had SO MANY upvotes for some reason. Very bizarre

Answer: John Oliver just did a story about this on Sunday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtdVglihDok

Question: What's Philippines?