The Marcos Makeover

The build-up to a crucial election for the Phillipines

The Marcos Makeover Ferdinand Marcos Jnr - son of dictator Ferdinand Snr - is poised to become the next President of the Philippines. Once synonymous with corruption, the Marcos family has been restoring its reputation.
As the election in the Philippines gets underway, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr looks likely to bring back a name most believed was relegated to the history books. The son of dictator Ferdinand Snr, his family's political past is a dark one. So brutal was their regime, the family was driven out of the nation in the wake of the 1986 'People Power' revolution. But the family has used social media to win over young voters who aren't aware of the Marcos' dark past. Emblematic of this tactic, prominent Marcos campaigner Larry Gadon denies that Marcos Snr was a dictator, and argues that the thousands of dissidents murdered were killed justly: 'it's all propaganda ... We were all free during that time', he says. 'How can history have been changed so dramatically? Through the help of social media platforms', says journalist Maria Ressa, who has researched the spread of misinformation on social media in the Philippines. One woman who was part of the underground resistance during Marcos Snr's regime - and tortured for her dissidence - also believes that younger generations are ignorant of the past: 'The young ones don't know that it happened. They believe that Marcos had a good government, a benevolent government'.
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