The recent landslide victory of Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos in the Philippine presidential elections is priceless. It would cause laughter if it weren't for the disturbing evidence of the progressive decline of the democratic system in more and more countries.
It would seem that Bongbong, 64, needs no introduction, being the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who along with his wife, Imelda, the one with the three thousand pairs of shoes and mother of the president-elect, ruled the Philippines with a hand of iron from 1965 to 1986, the year in which the marriage was expelled from the country that they had thoroughly looted during all those years in power. And, of course, they left with the saddlebags bursting.
Now, taking into account that 56% of the electorate is currently between 18 and 40 years old or that for many years now they have been working hard by all means to whitewash the infamous criminal history of the Marcos family, it is not surprising that it succeeded at the polls Bongbong's populism with his irresistible pint of grinning showman in the style of Georgie Dann is his best days.
The new vice president of the Philippines will be none other than Sara Duterte, the daughter of outgoing president Rodrigo Duterte, a tough guy who likes to throw drug suspects out of a helicopter mid-flight, among many other barbarities. Unfortunately not only for the Filipinos, however, this new presidential tandem is far from being an isolated case, nor was the conjugal dictatorship formed by Bongbong's parents.
Ah, but memory is short, too short. Also, or especially, in politics. There have been many dictators or charismatic leaders who have tried to found a dynasty from power –or golden exile–. Although, yes, depending on how you look at it, not all of them are the same: there have been benign, malignant, mediocre or simply petty.
India has lived through the saga of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty; in neighboring Pakistan, it has been the Bhuttos. Africa is a continent rich in examples; suffice it to mention that of the Obiang in Equatorial Guinea. And let's not say Latin America, which goes from the Perón through the Kirchner, the Fujimori or, right now, in Nicaragua, the conjugal dictatorship formed by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
The United States, a country in which everything has to be bigger, has given us, at a national level, the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, the Bushes, the Clintons (almost) and now Trump is dying to return to the White House to set up a dynasty that claims to be millennial. Canada, always more discreet, settles for the Trudeaus. France has the Le Pen; and what else would Berlusconi want, the king, excuse me, sultan of bunga-bunga.
As for the Spain of the autonomies, there is no self-respecting Community that does not have its own cacique, clan, cartel or Cosa Nostra, always wanting to perpetuate itself in power far beyond its mandate, breaking the laws to the bullfighter and as many times as necessary.
Well, in view of this recent victory of Bongbong based on forgetfulness, the constant manipulation of news perpetrated in the media and social networks, in addition to the sheer general ignorance, what other result could be expected? And in case any detail was missing, it turns out that Bongbong's son, a smiling 28-year-old boy, is a congressman and has been pointing the way for some time.
More than resembling the political dynasties like the Marcos to the monarchies they try to emulate or surpass, they go rather the way of the families of comedians who for generations are dedicated to show business. It is not necessary for them to have their own ideas or even an ideology, since their only thing is to memorize the script written by others, to interpret in the most convincing way possible the role assigned to them and, of course, to know how to lie like a rascal without being too noticeable.
All politics is a stage and the filfas, filfas are.
