Column: What we can expect from a Marcos Junior presidency

John Nery

May 5

The dictator's son will seek to reshape the Philippines in his father's bloated image. Published in Rappler on March 2, 2022.

[Newsstand] What we can expect from a Marcos Junior presidency

In 2011, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. proposed changing Rizal Day from December 30 to June 19. He was a new senator, in his first year in office; he filed Senate Bill 2743 on June 18, the day before the country marked the 150th birth anniversary of the national hero. "The birthday of our national hero should always be a day of celebration of his life and of his great contribution to the country's dependence from foreign domination," he said.

As I had the chance to explain on the ABS-CBN News Channel that same week, that proposal to change Rizal Day from the date of his execution by Spanish colonial authorities in 1896 to the date of his birthday in 1861 was a mistake. December 30 is our oldest secular holiday—observed by the revolutionaries exiled in Hong Kong in 1897, the subject of a proclamation by Emilio Aguinaldo in 1898, constantly observed since then. The revolutionary generation, who were directly inspired by Rizal, saw his martyrdom as a defining moment in the shaping of our history. Six presidents—including Marcos Junior's own father, on two occasions—took their oath of office on December 30, at a time when presidential inaugurations were integrated into Rizal Day rites.

Nothing came of the proposal; on hindsight, the bill seemed to have been filed as a belated attempt to extend (or to capitalize on) the significance of the Rizal sesquicentennial, the first to mark the 150th birth anniversary of the heroes (including Bonifacio, Mabini, Aguinaldo) born in the 1860s.

What does Marcos Junior's willingness to change the date of Rizal Day imply for a second Marcos presidency? I have an idea.