THIS year, EDSA People Power celebrates its 40th anniversary. It has been 40 years since the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was forced to exit Malacañang with his family under the protection of the United States, which facilitated their exile in Hawaii. Three years later, in 1989, Ferdinand Sr. expired from cardiac arrest after a long battle with heart, lung and kidney problems, presumably arising from his bout with systemic lupus erythematosus, a chronic autoimmune disease, that he hid from the Filipino people. In 1991, Imelda and son Ferdinand Jr., or “Bongbong,” returned to the country to re-stake their claim to Philippine politics with mixed results: Imelda performed very poorly as a presidential candidate while Bongbong gained a congressional seat in Ilocos Norte during the 1992 elections.
Forty years after EDSA, the dictator’s only son and namesake is now the president of a people that ousted his family in 1986. Bongbong’s post-EDSA political career, however, has been a roller-coaster ride:
Local
– He won the congressional race in Ilocos Norte in 1992 and again in 2007.
– He served as a three-term governor of Ilocos Norte from 1998 to 2007.
National
– He lost a senatorial bid in 1995 but won in 2010.
– He lost as a vice presidential candidate in 2016 but landed the presidency in 2022.
To summarize, Bongbong always won in Ilocos Norte but had mixed results at the national arena.
Moreover, it is undeniable that Sara Duterte carried him on her back during the 2022 presidential elections. Vice President Sara is the daughter of Bongbong’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who ended his term in 2022 with the highest trust and approval ratings of any outgoing president in the post-EDSA history of the country. Rodrigo’s popularity was channeled to the vice presidential run of Sara, who, in turn, channeled her powers to help Marcos Jr., a losing vice presidential candidate in the 2016 elections.
Not surprising because plunder runs in his bloodline, Bongbong Marcos is now in the middle of a multitrillion-peso corruption scandal that has recently pushed his net satisfaction and trust ratings to negative territory. The worst part is that despite the plundering regime of Ferdinand Sr. that was halted by EDSA 1986 coupled by the I-will-surpass-my-father’s-malfeasance of Ferdinand Jr., the heirs of the EDSA People Power movement have thought it more prudent to coddle Bongbong if only to prevent the rise of Sara Duterte.
Thus, the 40th anniversary gift of the present to EDSA 1986 is the unlikely alliance between the self-proclaimed heirs of the People Power movement and the Marcoses.
It sure would be interesting to see how the victims of the Marcos Sr. dictatorship — the OG political yellows, for instance — would react seeing the sweetness exhibited by the Yellow-supported 2022 presidential candidate and incumbent Naga City Mayor Leni Robredo toward Bongbong Marcos, whom she even called a liar and a cheat during the campaign period.
Another hypothetically unforgettable sight would be Eugenio “Geny” Lopez Jr. being informed that his kin in their flagship ABS-CBN voluntarily entered a joint venture called Media Serbisyo Production Corp. with the Prime Media Holdings Inc. of Imelda Marcos’ nephew and former House speaker, Martin Romualdez.
It is a pity that Cory Aquino died in 2009 at the age of 76. She should have lived until 2026 at the ripe old age of 93. In the same breath, if Geny Lopez held on until 2023 at the age of 95 years old, he would have witnessed his family’s partnership with the Romualdezes. That would have made for an entertaining family discussion.
In the early 1980s, Ferdinand Sr. paid no heed to the entreaties of Ninoy Aquino to resign from office and allow the political yellows to take over. Little did he know that 40 years later, the heirs of the yellow movement would have no qualms entering into an alliance with his own heirs.
Politicians often have a sort of embedded-Machiavellianism in the core of their being. Ninoy Aquino, for instance, was a Machiavellian who essentially threatened Ferdinand Sr. with terrorism if he refused to step down in the 1980s. In a previous column for this paper (“Terrorists and terrorism,” Manila Times, Aug. 29, 2025), I wrote:
“In his speeches before the Asia Society in 1980 and in Los Angeles in 1981, Ninoy Aquino hinted that the bombings taking place in urban areas in the country was a consequence of Marcos Sr.’s refusal to step down and restore democracy in the Philippines. He, however, carefully distanced himself from these terroristic acts, but at the same time sounded like he endorsed it also, passive-aggressive style! I cannot shake the feeling, reading between the lines, that Ninoy was either at the helm or was among a group of influential opposition leaders who gave their blessings for acts of terrorism to be used.”
Cory Aquino, for her part, has to answer for showing her Machiavellian side during the Mendiola Massacre in 1987, where state security forces opened fire on marching militants near Malacañang, resulting in 13 dead and 80 wounded protesters.
What this proves is that principles are often subordinated to political circumstances. Who knows what might have happened if Marcos Sr. reacted more favorably to taking the political yellows into the fold instead of imprisoning them and suppressing their personal political ambitions? Marcos Jr. has certainly opened our eyes to the true character of the yellows.
Had Marcos Sr. shown a willingness to change the circumstances of his regime, maybe Ninoy Aquino could have become his political heir instead of being assassinated in 1983. In fact, this was the narrative suggested by a younger Bongbong Marcos when he appeared as a guest in the talk show of the equally younger Kris Aquino in the 1990s: Marcos Sr. and Ninoy were not enemies, rather they were fraternity brothers (at the University of the Philippines) who planned to become political successors, the latter to the former.
The suggestion was considered wildly absurd at the time, but given what Bongbong has accomplished on that front now, it does not sound as far-fetched as it did back then.
Maleta lang pala ang kailangan.
