The Philippines has been a longtime ally of its former colonial power, the United States. Abiding in the Red Scare during the Cold War, American administrations backed the dictatorial regime of Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. until it switched to his opposition led by Corazón Aquino in 1986 after the late despot became unpopular. Relations of the two countries with each other became strained as Rodrigo Duterte, a strongman who has disdain towards drugs, crime and also human rights, was elected in 2016, but this cooling of ties was not for long, as his fellow Putinist, Donald Trump, became president a few months later; both of them are in the club of populist terrorism.
The Philippine regime veered towards Vladimir Putin's Russia and PR China, albeit not abandoning USA relations, but this became slowly balanced when Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in 2020, and Duterte was succeeded by the younger Marcos, nicknamed Bongbong, in 2022. Russian relations were weakened, even if Marcos, Jr. expressed "neutrality" over Putin's invasion of Ukraine; ties with PRC remained warm, as during a Filipino-Chinese event he remembered the visit of his mother Imelda to Mao Zedong when she was first lady. But the remarkable change was the return of the Philippines to the American sphere.
After a case in the United States involving ill-gotten wealth and human rigths abuses, the Marcoses were not allowed to enter the country lest they face arrest. One time I and some of my relatives were going to the final campaign rally of Marcos, Jr.'s rival, then-vice president Leni Robredo, almost a year ago. When one of my companions in the van said that if Marcos wins the election, he would still not be able to enter the USA due to this case, I came to refute: then-chief minister of India's Gujarat state Narendra Modi was barred from entering due to his role in inciting violence during the state's 2002 pogroms, but when he became Prime Minister in 2014, his visa ban was revoked, making him able to land at the White House and meet Barack Obama the same year. American authorities did the same thing to Bongbong when "elected" president in 2022, providing him diplomatic immunity. These moves put the integrity of the USA's actions "to uphold human rights and justice globally" into question.
"Yes!", Marcos, Jr. was surely relieved of this update. He then took advantage of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting in September 2022 and the opportunity to meet Biden at the sidelines. He summarised his trip in an episode of his vlog (he still finds time to vlog as "president"), posted amidst Typhoon Noru that was battering the island of Luzón. During the meeting with Bongbong, the American president showed value to his country's ties with the Philippines, but he raised an issue that gave the younger Marcos discomfort: "human rights". News reports did not further elaborate the discussion, but the Philippine "leader" rejected responsibility for his father's atrocities, and was in the defensive for Duterte's "war on drugs" that killed thousands of Filipinos.
Even so, why is Biden keen to meet the son of the late Filipino dictator? Take note that Marcos, Jr. is viewed as the 2022 candidate who would continue the "Duterte legacy", the legacy of his pro-PRC predecessor who remained unfortunately popular among the Filipino masses. It was about PRC; the South China Sea is a geopolitical battle-sea between the West and the Asian superpower. Backing the Philippines, which has claims over certain Spratly islands just as China and their neighbours also have, would give itself (USA) a role in the issue, while letting its longstanding ally lose like Duterte is licking PRC's boots would give much of the Sea to the American rival. And Biden is willing to set human rights issues in the Philippines aside, issues like the "war on drugs" and the crimes against humanity during Marcos, Sr.'s Martial Law period.
But he said "human rights" to Marcos in their 2022 meeting. Now they are to meet again; defence is a key topic in their discussions, and I hope there would be also a full-blown talk on human rights, so as to disturb Bongbong, trip his guilt, and hold his family and his allies accountable for their abuses. Marcos, Jr. would however also emphasise on economic objectives of his second USA trip.
Remember his participation in the 2023 World Economic Forum summit? His regime prepared a sovereign wealth fund in order to attract investors to the country. It was named "Maharlika", a name associated with his father's fantasies like "Maharlika Kingdom" (that had the "Tallano gold" that is said to enrich the Filipino masses in the future), "Ang Maharlika" (1970/1987 film), and "Republika ng Maharlika" (planned renaming of the Philippines), and he eyed for a "soft launch" of this fund in the summit while it was in the works. The fund was criticised for lacking transparency measures, which could end up in corruption, the issue the Marcoses are infamous at. This issue involved cases not only in the United States but also Singapore (which Bongbong had visited twice) and the WEF summit's host country, Switzerland. The Philippine "president" got the audacity to visit all of these countries where his family stored their wealth stolen from the nation. And he will try to repeat these activities during his second USA visit.
The greed of the Marcos family has not died out: the greed for power was eminent, as tackled by American director Lauren Greenfield's documentary The Kingmaker, and he admitted to running for president just to defend his family; the greed for money has also not died out, as his family does efforts to redo corrupt practices. This can be one of his agenda in his next American visit; he might just try to acquire new properties and items in the country, just like what "Ferdy and Meldy" did when they were plundering the Philippines. He might just try to fool the American authorities in order to gain more wealth.
Biden has to be vigilant with whom he is talking to.
Article posted on 29 April 2023, 18:14 (UTC +08:00).
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