Bongbong Marcos
Ferdinand "Bongbong" Romualdez Marcos Jr., commonly referred to by the initials BBM or PBBM, is a Filipino politician who has served as the 17th president of the Philippines since 2022. He is the second child and only son of 10th president Ferdinand Marcos and former first lady Imelda Marcos.
In 1980, Marcos was elected vice governor of Ilocos Norte, running unopposed with the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan party of his father, who was ruling the Philippines under martial law at the time. He then became governor in 1983, holding that office until his family was ousted from power by the People Power Revolution and fled into exile in Hawaii in February 1986. After the death of his father in 1989, President Corazon Aquino allowed his family to return to the Philippines to face various charges; in October 1991, he became the first Marcos to return since the revolution. Marcos and his mother, Imelda, are currently facing arrest in the United States for defying a court order to pay million in restitution to human rights abuse victims during his father's dictatorship. However, as long as he is president, he can enter the United States due to diplomatic immunity.
Marcos was elected as the representative of Ilocos Norte's second district, serving from 1992 to 1995. He was elected governor again in 1998. After nine years, he returned to his previous position as representative from 2007 to 2010, before entering the Senate of the Philippines under the Nacionalista Party for a single term from 2010 to 2016. Marcos unsuccessfully ran for vice president in the 2016 election, narrowly losing to Camarines Sur representative Leni Robredo. Marcos contested the result at the Presidential Electoral Tribunal but his electoral protest was unanimously dismissed in 2021 after the pilot recount resulted in Robredo widening her lead by 15,093 additional votes.
Marcos ran for president in the 2022 election under the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas, which he won by a landslide with nearly 59% of the vote. During his campaign, he refrained from participating in presidential debates. Although President Rodrigo Duterte had expressed criticisms of Marcos as a "weak leader", Duterte's daughter Sara ran as Marcos' running mate and won a majority of the votes, with their UniTeam coalition being credited for their resounding electoral success. His win was the largest since 1981, when his father won 88% of the votes due to a boycott by the opposition. His presidential campaign received criticism from fact-checkers and disinformation scholars for being driven by historical negationism aimed at rehabilitating the Marcos brand and smearing his rivals.
As president, Marcos concurrently served as the Secretary of Agriculture in his initial 16 months. He continued the Build! Build! Build! infrastructure program of President Duterte through his own program called "Build Better More". Foreign policy has been characterized by efforts to reestablish closer ties with the United States, an abrupt shift from the China-oriented policies of the Duterte administration. Amidst China's increased territorial encroachment in the maritime area within the West Philippine Sea that has led to standoffs with Filipino vessels, Marcos has repeatedly affirmed Philippine jurisdiction over the area, stating in 2023 that "This country will not lose an inch of its territory". In 2024, Marcos banned Philippine offshore gaming operators that had proliferated under the previous administration, while Vice President Sara Duterte resigned from his cabinet amidst a growing rift in the Marcos and Duterte political families. The year 2025 was marked by controversy over the national budget, the impeachment of Vice President Duterte, the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte, and a massive infrastructure corruption scandal he had initially publicized and denounced.
Early life and education
Bongbong Marcos was born as Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. on September 13, 1957 to Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda Romualdez Marcos, at a hospital in Santa Mesa, Manila, Philippines, which would eventually be known as the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in 1958, the year after his birth. At the time of his birth, his father Ferdinand was the representative for the second district of Ilocos Norte, eventually becoming a senator just two years later. His godfathers included prominent personalities and future Marcos cronies Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr. and pharmaceuticals magnate Jose Yao Campos.Education
Marcos first studied at the Institución Teresiana in Quezon City and La Salle Green Hills in Mandaluyong, where he obtained his kindergarten and elementary education, respectively.In 1970, Marcos was sent to England where he lived and studied at Worth School, an all-boys Benedictine institution in West Sussex. He was studying there when his father declared martial law throughout the Philippines in 1972.
Marcos attended the Center for Research and Communication, where he took a special diploma course in economics, but did not finish. He then enrolled at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, to study philosophy, politics and economics. Despite his false claims that he graduated with a bachelor of arts in PPE, he did not obtain such a degree. Marcos passed philosophy, but failed economics, and failed politics twice, making him ineligible for graduation. Instead, he received a special diploma in social studies, which was awarded mainly to non-graduates and is currently no longer offered by the university. Marcos still falsely claims that he obtained a degree from the University of Oxford despite the university confirming in 2015 that Marcos did not finish his degree.
Marcos enrolled in the master's in business administration program at the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, United States, which he failed to complete. Marcos asserts that he withdrew from the program after his election to be Vice Governor of Ilocos Norte in 1980. The Presidential Commission on Good Government later reported that his tuition, his monthly allowance, and the estate he lived in while studying at Wharton, were paid using funds that could be traced partly to the intelligence funds of the Office of the President, and partly to some of the fifteen bank accounts that the Marcoses had secretly opened in the US under assumed names.
Early public roles
Marcos was thrust into the national limelight as early as when he was three years old, and the scrutiny became even more intense when his father first ran for President of the Philippines in 1965, when he was eight years old.During his father's 1965 campaign, Marcos played himself in the Sampaguita Pictures film Iginuhit ng Tadhana , a biopic based on the novel For Every Tear a Victory. The young Marcos was portrayed giving a speech towards the end of the film, in which he says that he would like to be a politician when he grows up. The public relations value of the film is credited for having helped the elder Marcos win the 1965 Philippine elections.
A young Bongbong Marcos and his sister Imee played a small role in the controversial "Manila incident" of the Beatles in July 1966, just six months after their father assumed the presidency. Bongbong and Imee were among 400 children whom their mother Imelda brought to Malacañang Palace for a reception in which they expected the Beatles to show up. The four band members claimed not to know about the event, and refused to attend.
As the event went on without them, the Marcos children were interviewed. Bongbong, referring to the group's long hair, was quoted saying "I'd like to pounce on the Beatles and cut off their hair! Don't anybody dare me to do anything, because I'll do it, just to see how game the Beatles are." Imee, meantime, was quoted saying "There is only one song I like from the Beatles, and it's Run for Your Life."—a quote which media later associated with the way the Beatles scrambled out of Manila, receiving rough treatment at Manila International Airport.
Beatles lead guitarist George Harrison later accused the Marcoses of inciting Filipinos to mob the band as they tried to leave the country for not showing up at the reception, saying in a 1986 interview at NBC's Today Show that the Marcoses "tried to kill
The Manila Bulletin reported in 2015 that Marcos had once invited Beatles drummer Ringo Starr to return to the Philippines "to bring closure" to the incident. The incident was brought up in the media again after a 2021 interview between Marcos and actress Toni Gonzaga, when he was asked about which musicians he idolized, and he casually mentioned that he was friends with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones and members of the Beatles.
Marcos was still a minor in 1972 when martial law was declared. Marcos turned 18 in 1975—a year after he graduated from Worth School.
Roles in the Marcos regime
Vice governorship and governorship in Ilocos Norte
Marcos's first formal role in a political office came with his election as Vice Governor of Ilocos Norte at the age of 22. On March 23, 1983, he was installed as the Governor of Ilocos Norte, replacing his aunt Elizabeth Marcos-Keon, who had resigned from the post for health reasons. In 1983, he led a group of young Filipino leaders on a 10-day diplomatic mission to China to mark the tenth anniversary of Philippine–Chinese relations. He stayed in office until the People Power Revolution in 1986.During Marcos's term, at least two extrajudicial killings took place in Ilocos Norte, as documented by the Martial Law Victims Association of Ilocos Norte.
Chairmanship of PHILCOMSAT Board
Marcos was appointed by his father to be chairman of the board of the Philippine Communications Satellite Corporation in early 1985. In a prominent example of what Finance Minister Jaime Ongpin later branded "crony capitalism", the Marcos administration had sold its majority shares to Marcos cronies such as Roberto S. Benedicto, Manuel H. Nieto, Jose Yao Campos, and Rolando Gapud in 1982, despite being very profitable because of its role as the sole agent for the Philippines' link to global satellite network Intelsat.President Marcos acquired a 39.9% share in the company, through front companies under Campos and Gapud. This allowed President Marcos to appoint his son as the chairman of the Philcomsat board in early 1985, allowing the young Marcos to draw a monthly salary "ranging from to " despite rarely visiting the office and having no duties there. PHILCOMSAT was one of five telecommunications firms sequestered by the Philippine government in 1986.