Ahead of the 2025 Filipino general election, political tensions surrounding President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. have captured global attention. In Reinventing Marcos: From Dictator to Hero, Keith Dalton revisits the authoritarian regime of Bongbong’s father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr, examining the enduring influence of Filipino political dynasties and the lessons they offer to present.

General elections in the Philippines scheduled for May this year will present as an important mid-term reckoning for President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and family; and also for the family of former president Rodrigo Duterte. Bongbong’s relationship with another dynastic “junior”, Vice-President Sara Duterte, had so deteriorated by late 2024 that, contingently, she threatened to have him assassinated if she were killed first. Subsequently, the Philippines House of Representatives voted to impeach Duterte on grounds of alleged corruption. Almost four decades after the non-violent popular uprising that forced the ouster and exile of Bongbong’s dictatorial and kleptocratic father, Ferdinand Marcos Senior, it is a reminder of the rivalries still virulent among political dynasties.

As Keith Dalton recounts, in Reinventing Marcos: From Dictator to Hero, wealthy Filipino dynasties have long aimed to win public office for their patriarchs, their children, or trustworthy cohorts who become the political pawns of their benefactors. Much sought after are prestigious offices such as provincial governor or city mayor. “Once in power”, Dalton writes, “they practice what most Filipinos have come to expect of them: influence peddling, patronage, and personality politics”. Despite the fall of the Marcos regime from national office, family members held the governorship of Ilocos Norte province for 41 of the 53 years to 2024. Bongbong served two terms in the role, first under the presidency of his father for three years, before joining him in Hawaiian exile; and then again, following his return to the Philippines, between 1998 and 2007.

Foreshadowed by the book’s title, Dalton sets out to address the state of orchestrated forgetfulness that appears to have accompanied Bongbong’s rise to national leadership. He does so by revisiting the dismal reality of the Marcos rule (in which a young Bongbong and his sister were actors) leaving to others the task of analysing the more recent campaign of alleged disinformation. As for that campaign, suffice it to note a commentary from the feisty online news site, Rappler.com:

“Beyond justifying the family’s wealth and denying massive corruption during the Martial Law period, the Marcos propaganda network focused its energies on hyping up “achievements” of the Martial Law regime, denying abuses, and vilifying rivals.”

For a decade until the fall of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., Dalton lived and worked in Manila as a freelance foreign correspondent. This fulfilled a youthful vision that took actionable form during his early years with the Melbourne Herald and Radio Australia where we were colleagues. Of correspondents I have known, Dalton’s grit as a solo reporter brings to mind the late Robert Fisk: immersed in the milieu, committed to first-hand news-gathering regardless of sometimes remote and life-threatening circumstances; and with a sensitivity − sense of outrage even − to systemic injustice. Decades later, during a protracted hospital stay in Sydney, he felt driven to write this account as a rebuttal to the active campaign accompanying Bongbong’s ascendancy. The aspiring president’s family seemed to heed words attributed elsewhere to its matriarch, Imelda Marcos: “Perception is real, the truth is not.”

Under President Marcos Sr., who held office for two decades until 1986, Dalton observed the Philippines descending into a brutally corrupt, militarised and lawless place, much of the time under a martial law regime enforced by defence minister Juan Ponce Enrile. The regime jailed thousands of people and tortured many. Dalton writes that it tolerated or sanctioned military hit squads and private militia responsible for numerous killings. Marcos centralised power and granted privileges to the elite, further entrenching extreme socio-economic inequality. Dalton cites the example of Marcos beneficiary, Roberto Benedicto, who reportedly came to own 85 corporations, 106 sugar farms, 14 haciendas, 17 radio stations, 16 television stations, two telecommunication networks, seven buildings, golf and country clubs, along with ships and aircraft.

Reinventing Marcos is structured in five parts, bookended by those concerned with Dalton’s personal narrative, prior to and following his years in the Philippines. Most compelling for this reader are chapters in Part 3 that provide a reporter’s eloquent testimony to incidents of regime negligence, brutality and grand corruption. Such accounts that linger over particular circumstances and the abuse of relatable individuals can evoke deeper reflection than the routinised video news clips of mass depravity that feature on our screens almost daily. Dalton writes also of his own harrowing experiences: an improbable escape when troops fired on and raided a camp of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) into which he had trekked to conduct interviews; and the warning from defence minister Enrile’s enforcers while holding a handgun to his temple.

Chapters dealing with the conduct and eventual fall of Marcos Sr. are forcefully argued and pertinent. Yet some chapters would have benefited from additional line editing of paragraph structure and word choice to eliminate repetition and enhance his narrative voice. Although necessary for this review to note, they do not detract from the worth of Dalton’s narrative mission. He writes of history with an intense, contemporary interest, shared with his Philippines-born wife Bet.

For those readers too young to remember the rule of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and those of us who need reminding, this book serves as a timely caution about the management of our expectations − especially in light of the Philippines’ centrality to the Indo-Pacific geostrategic contest. Under the murderous law-and-order regime of Bongbong’s predecessor, president Duterte, Philippines’ foreign policy tilted toward Beijing. Bongbong has reversed the tilt and, domestically, is reported to govern with relative moderation. According to former senator Leila de Lima, who was imprisoned for seven years under the former Duterte regime, Marcos Jr. has so far not demonstrated the authoritarian tendencies of his late father and should be viewed with “cautious optimism”. Interviewed for The Monthly, however, she warns this may be just “breathing space” as opinion polls point to Bongbong’s current unpopularity due to his government’s handling of inflation and the economy.

This is a review of Keith Dalton’s Reinventing Marcos: From Dictator to Hero, (Sydney: self-published 2024; www.keithdaltonauthor.com).

Dr Geoff Heriot is a consultant on media and governance, and a former corporate and editorial executive with the ABC. A review of his book, International Broadcasting and its Contested Role in Australian Statecraft: Middle Power, Smart Power, appeared in The Reading Room on 30 January 2024.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.