News Roundup 25 May 2022
May 25, 2022 • 4 min Read
Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. is PH’s 17th president | INQUIRER.NET – After a practically smooth sailing in Congress, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC), former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. was proclaimed Wednesday as the 17th president of the Republic of the Philippines. Marcos was proclaimed at the Batasan Pambansa in Quezon City after NBOC concluded its canvassing of votes for the presidential and vice presidential race, with the camp of his political rival Vice President Leni Robredo posing no objections to all certificates of canvass counted in his favor. The president-elect ran for vice president in 2016 but lost to Robredo. He protested the results before the Supreme Court but the high court eventually junked his petition. Marcos, son of the former strongman and namesake, was a one-term senator from 2010-2016 before throwing his hat in the vice-presidential contest in the May 2016 polls. His first crack at politics was when he became Ilocos Norte’s vice-governor at the age of 23 in 1980 while his father ruled the country under martial law. Marcos then became governor from 1983 until his father’s dictatorship was toppled through a bloodless revolution and the Marcos family was forced to leave the Philippines to go on exile in Hawaii in 1986.
VP-elect Sara Duterte mum on why family members absent during proclamation | INQUIRER.NET – Vice President-elect Sara Duterte-Carpio refused to answer why none of her family members attended her proclamation on Wednesday at the Batasang Pambansa Complex in Quezon City. After the proclamation, Duterte-Carpio stopped before waiting members of the media to deliver her victory message, in which she dedicated her win to fallen victims of terrorism, abuse, bullying and criminality. But when she was asked about the absence of her family members – husband Mans Carpio, father President Rodrigo Duterte, brothers Davao City Rep. Paolo and Davao City Mayor-elect Sebastian, mother Elizabeth Zimmerman and her children – during the ceremony, she remained silent and just said, “Thank you,” before walking away. Traditionally, a newly elected presidents and vice president is accompanied by family members when they go up to the rostrum at the Batasang Pambansa Complex to receive the certificate of canvass and be proclaimed as electoral victor by the Senate President and Speaker of the House. But when it was Duterte-Carpio’s turn at the rostrum, she went up alone. In contrast, her running mate President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s ascent to the rostrum saw his wife Liza Araneta, sisters Imee and Irene, mother Imelda, and son Simon beside and behind him.
Will People Power be commemorated in 2023? Marcos aide evades question | PHILSTAR.COM – The 1986 People Power EDSA revolution is a moment memorialized in history books: A peaceful revolution that ousted a dictator and inspired similar movements across the world. In the Philippines, lately tagged as a “forgetful country,” accounts of the brutal Martial Law period have been continuously revised and sanitized by government officials and academics as well as by an army of content creators, influencers and so-called disinformation operators. With President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. now headed back to Malacañang, will the Filipino people still commemorate this key moment in our national history or will February 25 go the way of January 17, the by now forgotten anniversary of the 2001 EDSA Dos ouster of Joseph Ejercito Estrada? Vic Rodriguez, Marcos’ long-time aide and soon to be executive secretary, does not see the point of asking about whether there would be space to mark the EDSA anniversary as all administrations since the restoration of democracy in 1986 have. In a chance interview with reporters after Marcos’ proclamation, he said: “I don’t see any connection to what we did today, getting the president elect and vice president elect proclaimed to what you’re asking me now.” Asked if they can give reassurance that Marcos will not revoke President Rodrigo Duterte’s Proclamation 319 that designated September 21 — the generally acknowledged anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law — as a national day of protest “in solidarity with the people’s call against all excesses or shortcomings of the government,” Rodriguez no longer answered. Marcos, who was elected by a historic majority vote, campaigned on the platform of unity but also on nostalgia for the supposed “golden years” of the Philippines under his father. His win has raised concerns of historical revisionism and, for the survivors and the families of victims of Martial Law, specters of a painful past.
