Philippines: how to win elections through disinformation
While Europe is still watching the Ukrainian conflict, things are happening in the rest of the world, believe it or not. In Southeast Asia, specifically in the Philippines, there were presidential elections on the 9th of this month. Running for office were Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, son of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, the flamboyant Imelda Marcos, and Leni Robredo, the country's then vice-president and human rights lawyer. The former won, doubling his rival in votes. It is as if Spain had elected a son of Franco as its future president, or Italy a scion of Mussolini.
How was it possible to elect the son of a brutal and kleptocratic dictator, with a wife who was fond of luxury and proud to show it unabashedly? This question becomes relevant when we consider that the Marcos regime fell in 1986, not so long ago, with many Filipinos who lived through the dictatorship and some of the Marcos era in its entirety still present.
The answer: misinform the people. But misinform them not only by discrediting your opponents - as Donald Trump did in 2016 - but by rewriting history, by dressing up a dark period in your history as a time of peace and prosperity compared to the misery of today (without telling the people that this misery was caused by your family and that you still enjoy the plunder). Finally, and very importantly, use social media to promote your message, especially if your country leads the rankings in daily social media usage with an average of 11 hours a day spent on mobile phones.
Before explaining how "Bongbong" misinformed the people to come to power, it is worth explaining what happened in the Philippines under his father's rule. During the martial law of 1972-1981 and according to Amnesty International, there were 70,000 prisoners, 34,000 tortured and 3,240 dead, nearly 10 billion dollars were looted from the country, an island was depopulated to build a zoo on a whim of Imelda and, finally, it is quite likely that Benigno Aquino - husband of the future president Corazon Aquino - was ordered assassinated shortly after leaving the plane that was bringing him back to the Philippines in 1983. As can be seen, the Marcos years in power were characterised by poverty, violence, fear and torture, a time that many people would probably like to avoid repeating.
An indicator of how the Marcos family has been able to rewrite history and rise to power can be found in the documentary 'The Kingmaker' by American documentary filmmaker Lauren Greenfield. In it we see how Imelda Marcos - wife of Ferdinand Marcos and mother of "Bongbong" - thinks of herself as a kind of Eva Perón of the Philippines, shamelessly showing off the expensive paintings in her house, her jewellery, wearing expensive clothes even when handing out money to the poor, and trivialising her husband's crimes, repeating again and again that, under her rule, the Philippines was a prosperous country where law and order reigned, where she played a special role as first lady, helping to ease Cold War tensions (she describes Mao, Gaddafi and Nixon as friends) and describing herself as the mother of the nation. She grieves over what she perceives as unfair persecution of her family for the Philippine government's efforts to make them repay all that they have plundered, literally saying that when the mob stormed the presidential palace in 1986, she hid jewellery in nappies, which she then used to pay lawyers in the various cases pending for the plunder of the Filipino people.
This sugar-coated image of her husband's legacy has been joined by her son. However, what makes the way "Bongbong" sells this image spectacular is the incessant repetition of her discourse on social media. In addition to the now classic fake Facebook accounts supporting Marcos, "Bongbong" uploaded 200 videos a week to his Youtube and Tiktok accounts praising the economic development the country experienced under his father, promising to continue his legacy. As a result, many Filipinos, especially young people raised in democracy, have believed that during the Marcos era there was peace and prosperity, giving their votes to Bongbong.
"Bongbong" has avoided debates and television interviews, both events where he would most likely have to account for his family's plunder and explain his electoral programme in detail, something he is not particularly good at (In the 2016 vice-presidential debate, where he also faced Leni Robredo for the post, he failed to explain when and if his family had the money he owed the country).
The victory of "Bongbong" is an ominous warning that most likely indicates how the world's populists will act in various elections: they will use social media as their only electoral platform, shunning debates and press conferences, both more serious formats where they have to explain their proposals and be accountable. And let us not think that this will only happen in so-called Third World countries like the Philippines. In the United States, Donald Trump, certainly set to run for president in 2024, is playing hard on social media as a platform for re-election, creating his own social network "Truth Social" and with his return to Twitter being a possibility with the arrival of Elon Musk at the company. Considering the impact Facebook had on Trump winning the 2016 election and how susceptible Americans are to conspiracy theories about the evil of the Democrats, it is quite likely that Trump will be re-elected in 2024, using the same game as "Bongbong" in the Philippines.
In conclusion, this month Filipinos voted in as president the son of a bloodthirsty, kleptomaniac dictator. The reason why this happened is to be found in the ability of the Marcos family, mother and son, to edulcorate the past, transforming a dark era into a period of prosperity. The insistent repetition of this message on social media in the leading country in hours spent in front of a mobile phone got people to buy into their discourse. Such a formula can be used by future populist leaders in election periods.
As Imelda Marcos says in 'The Kingmaker': "Perception is real and truth is not". Filipinos opted for perception rather than truth. We may be next.
• Clarification: Ferdinand Marcos was democratically elected President of the Philippines in 1965. In 1972, after a failed assassination attempt, he imposed martial law until 1981 and remained in power until he fled in 1986 after attempting to perpetuate himself in power through fraudulent elections.
• Data from the World Global Index 2021, quoted in "El hijo del dictador Marcos y la hija de Duterte ganan las elecciones", El País, May 2021 El hijo del dictador Marcos y la hija de Duterte ganan las elecciones en Filipinas | Internacional | EL PAÍS (elpais.com)
• For Bongbong's Youtube account see: Bongbong Marcos - YouTube
• This can be seen in The Kingmaker.