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TL;DR news on Marcos Philippines at June 14, 2023

If successful, he will cap off a political comeback that's been in progress since the family returned to the Philippines in 1991, after the death of Ferdinand Sr. For Marcos Jr's 10 million social media followers, videos like this feed the narrative of a lost era of economic greatness. It is this revisionist history that Marcos Jr has put at the centre of his campaign, which experts say is key to his rising popularity. The true legacy of Marcos Sr's infrastructure binge was a mountain of debt that ballooned from $843 million when he took office in 1965 to over $39 billion by the time he was deposed. For decades after Marcos Sr was driven into exile by the "People Power Revolution", the Philippines was known as "the sick man of Asia" due to its struggling economy. Indeed, on social media, the Marcos era is basking in a moment of sunny nostalgia. "Their disinformation game is top notch," Arugay said of the Marcos Jr campaign. Some social media content originates from the Marcos campaign, but a large portion is produced by an army of online acolytes, who can generate revenue from popular posts. The PCGG estimated the Marcoses amassed somewhere between $US5 billion and $US10 billion of assets, including jewels, gold, real estate, famous artworks and cash stuffed in Swiss bank accounts. Some fear a Marcos Jr presidency would spell the end of any further investigation into the family's corruption. The $2.2 billion Bataan plant became a monument to the greed and graft of the Marcos era, and was left dormant after the dictator was toppled in 1986. "We really have to look at nuclear power," Marcos Jr said in March, insisting at least one plant was needed to cut exorbitant electricity prices in the country. Marcos Jr, also a fan of wind, solar and geothermal technology, said a South Korean proposal to rehabilitate the Bataan plant should be revisited.