Corruption is the Marcos family’s enduring political legacy. For all the talk of “discipline” and “order” under Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship, what defined those 21 years was plunder on a breathtaking scale. Estimates of the family’s hidden wealth range from $10 billion to $30bn — siphoned from public coffers into Swiss banks, offshore accounts, New York penthouses, and Imelda’s infamous jewelry collection.
The Philippine Supreme Court has ruled multiple times that this wealth was ill-gotten, while the Sandiganbayan has issued convictions against the family and its cronies. Some funds have been recovered, others awarded as reparations to victims of torture and abuse. But much remains unrecovered, forever lost to shell companies, complicit bankers, and corrupt deals. That mountain of plunder is why the dictatorship collapsed in 1986 — and why the name Marcos became shorthand for corruption” itself.
And yet, like a bad sequel, the Marcos dynasty clawed its way back. Through local positions, influence-buying, and a well-oiled campaign of historical distortion, the family rehabilitated its brand. Bongbong Marcos Jr, convicted of tax evasion and consistently underwhelming as governor, congressman, and senator, was hardly the most talented of the clan. But in 2022, joining forces with the Dutertes, he rode a wave of disinformation and nostalgia into the presidency with a majority unprecedented in decades. The son of the dictator now sat in Malacañang, unapologetic for his family’s theft, still dodging questions about their hidden wealth.
Predictably, his presidency quickly reeked of the same old stench. National budgets ballooned with pork, described by critics as among the “most corrupt” in history. Confidential funds were funneled to both him and Vice President Sara Duterte, raising alarms over accountability. Marcos Jr himself was criticized for jet-setting, racking up more than a dozen foreign trips in his first year — pitching the Philippines to investors in Davos one month, watching Formula One in Singapore the next. Meanwhile, ordinary Filipinos reeled from inflation, natural disasters, and stagnant wages. The optics could not have been worse: A president luxuriating abroad while his people scraped by at home.
Now, in a stunning about-face, Marcos Jr wants to recast himself as an anti-corruption crusader. The audacity is almost breathtaking. He is believed to be behind the reshuffled Congress, removing key allies, and thundered in his State of the Nation Address about corruption in flood control projects. He created the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), stacked with ostensibly credible figures. He even named and shamed the top 15 construction firms for graft in infrastructure. With teary-eyed drama on a podcast, he claimed he loses sleep over corruption and — imagine this — welcomed investigation into his own government. He even encouraged rallies on September 21, the anniversary of martial law, traditionally the day Filipinos denounce his father’s crimes.
Why the sudden change? Because the political ground beneath him is crumbling. The mid-term elections did not go his way, revealing the limits of his supposed mandate. His satisfaction ratings have been slipping, a clear sign that the public is souring on his leadership. The Supreme Court’s decision to block impeachment proceedings against the vice president — a move widely seen as orchestrated by Malacañang — only deepened suspicions of backroom deals and exposed cracks within the ruling coalition. In short, things were going badly for his regime. And when strongman politics starts to wobble, the instinct is to change the script. Thus, the desperate attempt to flip the narrative: from plunderer’s heir to corruption fighter.
But let’s be clear — this is not repentance. This is performance. It is an attempt to flip the narrative, to erase decades of corruption by posing as the very thing the Marcoses never were: Reformers. The Marcos playbook has always been to manipulate memory, distort history, and substitute spectacle for accountability. This anti-corruption posturing is just the latest act in that play.
Flipping a narrative requires more than performance. It demands structural reform and actual accountability. Will Marcos Jr prosecute the cronies and allies who line their pockets through flood projects? Will he abolish the very confidential funds that have become a byword for corruption in his own government? If he were serious, he would start by acknowledging and returning his family’s ill-gotten wealth. That, of course, is unthinkable.
Filipinos are not naïve. They know corruption when they see it. They live with its consequences every day — in collapsed infrastructure, in underfunded schools, in hospitals that cannot cope and in flooded streets and homes. A Marcos cannot lead a crusade against corruption any more than an arsonist can lead a fire brigade. The legacy of plunder is not so easily flipped.
In the end, the question is not whether Marcos Jr can perform sincerity but whether the public will buy it. Judging by the massive outpouring on September 21, the people remember. And no amount of narrative gymnastics can turn a plunderer’s heir into a corruption fighter. Some legacies are too rotten to be rewritten.
Jude William Genilo is the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB).