Anyone alive from the 1980s then you'll remember the people power revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship and now Ferdinand Marcos's son.

Marcos jr is the top contender to be the next president of the country.

It is quite the sequel for this political dynasty.

DWS Janelle de Molen traveled to Marco stronghold.

Ilocos Norte to speak to his supporters.

The specter of Ferdinand Marcos Sr still looms large over Philippine politics ahead of the election.

Visitors are flocking to this museum in Ilocos Norte for a dose of history, if not a particularly nuanced one.

Inside it chronicles the Marcus's time in power a lot on the rise, but curiously little on the fall and nothing on the documented human rights abuses and wholesale plunder in between.

Located in the Marcus Home province, it's called the Malacanang of the North, named after the presidential palace in Manila some 480 kilometers away from here.

It is a symbol of the path he has taken from here to the highest office in the land and it will become clear in a matter of days whether his son well managed to achieve the same here at least Bongbong MARCOS is guaranteed an easy ride.

Many voters remember the Marcus is not as Kleptocrats, but as patrons did MARCo steel.

Look at our roads how nice they are.

Even if I were bribed, I would never change my vote.

The marcoses are good people.

Those who study the region say support for the Marcus is is driven by a sense of gratitude among the electorate.

They will tell you that their lands are from MArcos, their cows.

Their animals came from MArcos a university named after Marcus.

You have an hospital named after MaRCos and other and other institutions and if you trace that again to Lugano culture, we call that stallion, you have to go or you have to look back or pay for whatever whatever benefit that you that you had from from your benefactor.

That means campaigning for any other presidential candidate here.

Apart from Bongbong, Marcos is an especially difficult undertaking.

We have experienced harassment, bullying and we are told there is no place for us in Ilocos norte.

It is scary for us volunteers but we keep on fighting.

Um because when I meet silent supporters, I am happy and I know we are not alone.

Yes.

While Robredo is unlikely to win in this market stronghold.

What's clear is that different versions of the past and visions for the future are competing in this election, both in Ilocos Norte and across the Philippines.

For those who do not support MARCos JR and for those observers outside the country, the big question has been how this could possibly be happening, How could another MARCos possibly become the next leader?

Given what that dictatorship did to the people of the Philippines with its massive corruption and it's rampant human rights abuses.

A warning that some viewers may find this next report upsetting they are in a minority.

But they exist.

The Filipinos determined to remind voters of the brutality of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos relax.

One person who will never forget the atrocities committed by Marcus and his henchman is Christina Bhagwan.

She was one of tens of thousands of people detained and tortured for their political views during martial law.

Her testimony is distressing and the the hardest thing was that they put an object in my vagina.

That was the worst part of it.

And of course all throughout I was screaming.

No one seemed to hear Bhagwan is incensed at what she says, our efforts by the Marcus family to rewrite the past and we have at least 11,000.

How many is this?

103 Okay, who are have been established and have shown paper proof that they were either killed another person, horrified at the prospect of a dictator's son becoming president.

His former political prisoner Felix Dallas, he too was tortured.

It makes my blood boil.

What the heck?

The MArcos will be back.

The trauma during the times of Martial Law, it all comes back with the MArcos returned the memories of torture have all returned.

Yeah, the MARCOS dictatorship was eventually overthrown by what's known as the people power revolution.

The family was forced to flee, but critics say despite such anger, there's been a lack of accountability After Marcus Sr died in 1989, the family were allowed to return to the Philippines and re establish themselves.

The former first lady Imelda Marcus known for her extravagant lifestyle, was convicted of graft in 2018 but has never spent a day in prison benefiting it seems from what appears to be the collective amnesia of an entire nation.

We have journalist, ana santos usually based in the Philippines joining us.

It's great to have you in the studio, Thanks very much for having me melissa.

So anna I'm wondering are people's memories short or is all forgiven with the Marcos regime that we have this situation.

I wouldn't say that all is forgiven.

But more that a lot of history has been whitewashed and scrubbed clean.

We can see the massive disinformation and historical revisionism that the market is have invested in.

This has been really well documented by both international press like the Washington post and D.

W.

As well and domestic outlets.

They have been using Tiktok Youtube and really setting a new narrative of what the Marcus years were like in the seventies.

So martial law era is now being set to music and punched up with emojis and really softened up as like this golden era of Philippine history of Whitewashing all of the human rights atrocities and the massive corruption of the market is during those years and of course the 1980s, the 1970s.

It was a long time ago.

You have a new generation of young people in the Philippines who don't remember that period exactly and that's why you know, the analysts have said that the disinformation campaign being mounted on platforms such as YouTube And Tiktok does two things.

Number one, it escapes regulation, it's much harder to regulate those platforms.

Number two, it reaches a younger voting population that would have no memory of what the market years were like.

And secondly, it also sets up the stage for the future Marcos possibility of a regime.

We have to see that apart from the MArcos junior running for president, his son is also running in this election for a local office.

That's super interesting.

So let's hone in on that Ferdinand.

MaRCOS JR has been a politician, governor, senator.

Um have we seen anything to suggest that it's like father like son and that there are autocratic tendencies or anything like that.

You know, the political analysts and strategists who have been looking at his campaign see it as very interesting in the way that he is one banking on the Marcus last name.

He is the namesake of his father and but secondly, softening the strongman image with a little bit of his own, you know, his his political campaign message is one of unity.

So nothing very, you know, nothing very strong or very insidious or inflammatory, something that's very palliative calling everyone towards unity so that we can all achieve our nation, our nation's dreams for a better future.

So he's taken those to the Marcus name and his own kind of persona, which is he's soft and quite congenial on tv to come together to bring in his own narrative.

Now we've been focused on the mark assist.

But of course there are other candidates running for president.

Can you talk about them particularly the lenny Roberto, you know melissa, there are 10 candidates running for president in the Philippines, but let's focus on the current Vice president leni Robredo.

One thing that's very interesting is that in the 2016 elections, Vice President Robredo ran against Bongbong marcos and she won the vice presidency by 220,000 votes, just about that much.

You know, It's very interesting that again, we see these two running for the same political office and if I may bring back viewers towards to 1986.

Marcus The father ran against a woman who was a widow, she was put into the political limelight when her husband had died and she ousted him right back in 1986.

We see something of that same nature coming together.

Vice President Robredo is also a widow.

Her husband was the one who was more in the political limelight though she had many achievements of her own as a politician and as a human rights lawyer, she was put into the presidency last minute candidate who won this seems like a crazy sequel.

It does, but it's also quite you can't make this stuff up and it's quite poetic how, you know, we we called it back then when when Vice President rebreather one, it was called like poetic justice.

You know, again, a widow had beat the strongman from the vice presidency and now we're looking to see if that is going to happen again.

I think what needs to be put out here is bamboo marcos leads.

If we are to believe the polls, he leads by a very wide margin, Vice President Roberto is number two by a far second, but we also have to see the campaign of Vice President Robredo on the ground.

I was in Manila a few weeks ago.

Her supporters are volunteers, they call it not a campaign melissa, they call it a movement.

I have to tell you that there is so much bigger in the campaigns for Vice President Roberto in her rallies, there's so much, there's so much vigor, there's so much determination to number one make her win and not let a repeat of the Marcus years happen and everything is fueled by a lot of hope.

Ana Santos, this is fascinating.

Thank you so much for joining us in the studio.