Nearly four decades after the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the Philippines finds itself under the rule of his son, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. What was once a cautionary tale about dictatorship and corruption has transformed into a troubling reality — a restoration of power that threatens the country’s fragile democracy and collective memory.
The election of Marcos Jr. in 2022 was more than a political victory; it was a rewriting of history. Fueled by social media disinformation, historical distortion, and the machinery of nostalgia, the campaign transformed the dark years of Martial Law into a supposed “golden age.” Through viral videos and coordinated propaganda, the younger Marcos successfully blurred the line between fact and fiction. For many young voters — born long after 1986 — the horrors of torture, censorship, and plunder were reduced to rumors or propaganda, while the image of a disciplined, prosperous Philippines was sold as truth.
Today, the consequences of that erasure are becoming clear. Under Marcos Jr., the Philippines faces a deepening culture of impunity. Critical voices — journalists, activists, and opposition figures — continue to face harassment and intimidation. The government’s refusal to fully acknowledge the crimes of the past signals a dangerous tolerance for corruption and abuse. Without accountability, the same patterns of secrecy and patronage that defined the elder Marcos’s regime threaten to take root again.
Economically, promises of unity and progress have given way to widening inequality and stagnation. Billions in foreign loans have done little to improve public services or ease inflation. While ordinary Filipinos struggle with rising costs, the political elite thrives. Familiar names — the same families that dominated during Martial Law — remain entrenched in government. This concentration of power, justified by appeals to “continuity” and “stability,” mirrors the very system that once crippled the nation’s democracy.
Even more alarming is the erosion of historical truth. School curricula, state media, and official rhetoric now downplay or sanitize the atrocities of the Marcos dictatorship. Museums and memorials dedicated to Martial Law victims are underfunded or ignored. The danger is not only that Filipinos will forget — but that forgetting will justify new acts of repression. When a nation stops teaching its youth about tyranny, it risks creating a generation that cannot recognize it.
The re-election of a Marcos should have been a moment of reckoning — a time to confront how misinformation, elite politics, and public disillusionment have weakened democratic safeguards. Instead, it has become a warning. The Philippines stands at a crossroads: it can either defend truth and justice or allow history to repeat itself under new slogans and familiar names.
The fight for democracy did not end in 1986; it merely paused. The same courage that filled EDSA must live again — in classrooms, on social media, in the press, and in every citizen who refuses to forget. Because when memory dies, tyranny breathes anew.