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    Your Tuesday Briefing: Marcos at the White House

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    Also, Russian attacks across Ukraine.President Biden greeted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines at the White House.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMarcos at the White HouseThe president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., began a four-day visit to the U.S. with a meeting with President Biden in Washington yesterday. The trip is intended to send a message to China that Marcos plans to deepen his country’s relationship with the U.S.“We are facing new challenges and I couldn’t think of a better partner to have than you,” Biden told Marcos in the Oval Office. Biden added that the U.S. will “continue to support the Philippines’ military modernization.”Marcos’s trip comes days after the U.S. and the Philippines held their largest joint military exercises yet in the South China Sea, aimed at curbing China’s influence. The two countries signed a deal in February to allow the U.S. military to expand its presence in the Philippines. “It is only natural,” Marcos said in the Oval Office, that the Philippines “look to its sole treaty partner in the world to strengthen, to redefine, the relationship that we have and the roles that we play in the face of those rising tensions that we see now around the South China Sea and Asia Pacific.”U.S. outlook: The White House has been focusing on cultivating Marcos, the son of a dictator, as a regional ally since he took office 10 months ago. His predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, was more conciliatory toward China than his predecessors, and, at times, more confrontational with the U.S. Taiwan: The Philippines’ northernmost island is less than 100 miles from the self-governed island. An increased U.S. military presence could allow for a quick troop response in a war with China.China’s position: When the Chinese foreign minister visited the Philippines last month, he had a stern message: It was vital that the government in Manila, the capital, “properly handle issues” related to Taiwan and the South China Sea, and follow through on its earlier commitment not to choose sides.A tank near the front line of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region on Sunday.David Guttenfelder for The New York TimesFighting intensifies in UkraineBoth Russia and Ukraine reported escalating attacks in recent days, a sign that fighting was intensifying ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive. Russia launched a broad, predawn aerial assault across Ukraine yesterday, its second wide-ranging attack in just four days. Two people were killed and 40 wounded in Russian strikes on the central city of Pavlograd, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address.Ukraine said yesterday that it had launched four strikes on concentrations of Russian troops over the preceding 24 hours. Yesterday, a blast derailed a freight train in Russia, near the border, though a Russian official did not say who was responsible. Over the weekend, a series of explosions also occurred behind Russian lines.Timing: Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said on national television that the military was “reaching the finish line” in counteroffensive preparations.One complicating factor: Mud. It’s been raining for weeks in the region, and the ground is unusually wet. Ukraine’s new advanced weaponry is no match for the black, soupy soil.Alireza Akbari was lured from London to Iran in 2019 by a close friend.Khabar Online News AgencyA British spy in IranHe was a senior official in Iran, a trusted keeper of its defense secrets — and a British spy. A Times investigation shows how information shared by the official, Alireza Akbari, upended the world’s view of Iran’s nuclear program and led to his execution in January.Akbari, who was a senior military commander of the Revolutionary Guards, had open access to Iran’s inner circles of power and advised on key state policies. He also spied for Britain for nearly 16 years, according to Western intelligence officials. Intelligence sources told my colleagues Ronen Bergman and Farnaz Fassihi that Akbari revealed, among other things, the existence of Fordo, a uranium enrichment site hidden near Tehran.The revelations, which Britain shared with Israel and other Western intelligence agencies, shocked even those who closely monitored Iran. Fordo’s discovery proved critical in eliminating any doubt that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons and redrew the West’s military and cyber plans for countering the program. It also proved critical in persuading the world to impose sweeping sanctions against Iran.Details: Akbari was an unlikely spy. He displayed a fanatical allegiance to the ideals of the Islamic Republic and an unwavering support of Iran’s leaders, according to interviews with people who knew him. Other revelations: Iran also said he disclosed the identities of over 100 officials, most significantly Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the chief nuclear scientist whom Israel assassinated in 2020.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificA photo made available by the Royal Thai Police shows officers escorting the accused woman to a court in Bangkok.Royal Thai Police, via EPA, via ShutterstockThe police in Thailand charged a woman with nine murders. They found her with a bottle of cyanide after the sudden death of a traveling companion.Chris Hipkins, the prime minister of New Zealand, said that the country would “ideally” become independent one day — but that it had no plans to separate from the monarchy, The Guardian reported.Around the WorldProtestors in Marseille yesterday.Clement Mahoudeau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn May Day, some 800,000 French workers took to the streets across the country to protest the new pension plan.Paraguay elected Santiago Peña, a conservative economist, as president, resisting Latin America’s recent leftward shift.Thousands of people fleeing the war in Sudan have overwhelmed Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea, in their efforts to get to Saudi Arabia.Other Big StoriesU.S. regulators seized First Republic Bank and sold it to JPMorgan Chase. The sale has echoes of the recent banking crisis, but First Republic’s problems seem to be contained.“The Godfather of A.I.” left Google and warned of the technology’s risks: “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things.”A bronze sculpture was erected in Oslo’s harbor to honor Freya, the walrus who was killed there last year.A Morning ReadJessica Chou for The New York TimesMore young men are getting perms. The hairstyle has changed since its 1980s heyday: Instead of ringlets and hair spray, the modern male perm — inspired by K-pop and TikTok — is tender and softer.ARTS AND IDEASKim Kardashian at the Met Gala last year.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesA Met Gala previewCelebrities are lining up to walk the red carpet at the Met Gala in New York. (It is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. in New York, which is 5:30 a.m. in Hong Kong; 7:30 a.m. in Sydney.) The party is usually themed to the annual blockbuster show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. This year’s show, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” pays homage to the imagination and creativity of the longtime designer of Chanel, Fendi and his namesake line. (Lagerfeld died in 2019.)Given the theme, you can expect to see a lot of vintage designer dresses on the runway this year, which could make this the most sustainable Met Gala ever. Vanessa Friedman, our fashion editor, told us that she hoped it would be “a return to more toned-down elegance after years when guests’ clothes have gotten more and more costumey, the better to go more and more viral.”Among the many celebrities attending the celebration, Gala watchers will be on the lookout for one in particular: There’s speculation that Lagerfeld’s white Birman cat (and rumored heir), Choupette, who has her own nanny and Instagram account, may make an appearance.For more: Take our Lagerfeld quiz.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookArmando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.Air-fryer sweet potatoes are faster and less oily than their deep-fried counterparts.What to ReadThe first issue of “It Happened Online,” our new newsletter about the internet, looks at the fate of Twitter’s check marks.What to Watch“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” which adapts Judy Blume’s groundbreaking novel about puberty, is a Times critics pick.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Very (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. My colleagues won the top environmental journalism prize in the Fetisov Journalism Awards for coverage of Congo’s peatlands.“The Daily” is on the fight over the U.S. debt ceiling.I always love hearing from you. Please write to me at briefing@nytimes.com with any thoughts. More

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      Your Wednesday Briefing: Shanghai’s Devastating Outbreak

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      Also, the eight warmest years on record and a fragile political alliance in the Philippines.Even the lobby of this Shanghai hospital is crowded with patients. Qilai Shen for The New York TimesCovid rages in ShanghaiIn Shanghai last week, local health officials said that up to 70 percent of the city’s 26 million residents had been infected, and they expressed confidence that its Covid outbreak had peaked.But China’s Covid wave is still deluging its most populous city. The photographer Qilai Shen took pictures of the outbreak.Patients arrive at the emergency room.Qilai Shen for The New York TimesHospitals are overwhelmed. Staff members say they are overworked because many colleagues are absent after testing positive for the virus. Patients are being treated in every available space, including lobbies and hallways.Funeral homes are, too. Mourners grieve in the streets, holding the ashes of their loved ones.Mourners walked by a funeral home.Qilai Shen for The New York TimesContext: Shanghai endured one of China’s most grueling lockdowns last spring. Cots flooded dirty quarantine centers and residents were stuck at home for more than two months, fueling anger and anxiety.Global warming only continuesThe eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2014, European climate scientists said yesterday. Last year was the fifth-hottest year on record; 2016 remains the hottest ever.Despite a third year of La Niña, a climate pattern that tends to suppress global temperatures, Europe had its hottest summer ever in 2022. Eastern and Central China, Pakistan and India all experienced lengthy and extreme heat waves, and monsoon floods in Pakistan ravaged much of the country.Understand the Situation in ChinaThe Chinese government cast aside its restrictive “zero Covid” policy, which had set off mass protests that were a rare challenge to Communist Party leadership.Rapid Spread: Since China abandoned its strict Covid rules, the intensity and magnitude of the country’s outbreak has remained largely a mystery. But a picture is emerging of the virus spreading like wildfire.Rural Communities: As Lunar New Year approaches, millions are expected to travel home in January. They risk spreading Covid to areas where health care services are woefully underdeveloped.Economic Recovery: Years of Covid lockdowns took a brutal toll on Chinese businesses. Now, the rapid spread of the virus after a chaotic reopening has deprived them of workers and customers.A Failure to Govern: China’s leadership likes to brag about its governance of the country, but its absence in a moment of crisis has made the public question its credibility.Overall, the world is now 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.1 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than it was in the second half of the 19th century, when emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels became widespread.“If you draw a straight line through temperatures since 1970, 2022 lands almost exactly on where you’d expect temperatures to be,” one researcher said.The U.S.: Carbon emissions inched up last year, even as renewable energy surpassed coal power.Resources: Here’s a primer on the basic science behind climate change and photos of the crisis.Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the president of the Philippines, and Sara Duterte, the vice president.Ezra Acayan/Getty ImagesA strategic Marcos-Duterte allianceThe children of two former autocratic presidents lead the Philippines: Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is president, and Sara Duterte is the vice president.Critics say their partnership is designed to protect their two powerful political families and shape their fathers’ legacies. Both patriarchs were accused of rights abuses and corruption, and both families face multiple legal challenges.Marcos and Duterte are working to present a united front. Marcos defended Rodrigo Duterte’s vicious war on drugs, and Sara Duterte defended the use of a controversial phrase in a new textbook that refers to the years of martial law under the elder Ferdinand Marcos.But their balance of power is fragile. Duterte, a popular former mayor, has shown she will not serve in Marcos’s shadow. She has set up satellite offices in key cities and could be a strong candidate in 2028.Diplomacy: The stakes are high for the U.S. as it tries to deepen its ties to Southeast Asia, where China is increasingly trying to gain influence. The Philippines is a key security partner and its oldest treaty ally in the region.Families: Dynasties dominate national politics in the Philippines — just a few families constitute up to 70 percent of Congress.THE LATEST NEWSAround the WorldMillions of Brazilians believe that October’s presidential election was rigged, despite analyses finding nothing of the sort.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesDeeply rooted conspiracy theories and mass delusion drove Brazilians to riot.Violent riots in Peru over the ouster of the former president are sweeping the country. At least 17 people were killed on Monday in what a rights activist called “a massacre” by security forces.President Biden is meeting with the leaders of Mexico and Canada in Mexico City. They are seeking to make headway on an immigration surge and the fight against drug trafficking.The War in UkraineSoledar, a small city in eastern Ukraine, is close to Bakhmut, Russia’s ultimate prize. Roman Chop/Associated PressThe fight for the small eastern city of Soledar has intensified, as Russia seeks to gain a foothold around Bakhmut, an eastern Ukraine city.The Wagner Group, a private military contracting company, has recruited prisoners and is leading the offensive for Russia. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said he would send more troops and arms to the east.Ukrainian soldiers will travel to the U.S. to learn how to operate the Patriot missile system.More than 200 Russian doctors signed a letter urging President Vladimir Putin to give Aleksei Navalny, the imprisoned opposition politician, medical care. They signed with their full names, a rare example of public criticism.U.S. NewsPresident Biden’s lawyers found classified documents in his former office, White House officials said.A 6-year-old who shot his teacher in Virginia last week appeared to do so intentionally, the police said.Heavy rains caused flooding in California.Damar Hamlin, the football player who went into cardiac arrest during a game, was released from intensive care.A Morning ReadThe Sydney Modern is an extension of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.Petrina Tinslay for The New York TimesThe Sydney Modern, which opened last month, doubles the exhibition space of one of Australia’s most important institutions. The modern design, and a new curatorial focus, are an attempt to reframe Sydney as a cultural hub with Indigenous roots and close ties to Asia, instead of looking to Europe or the U.S. for validation.ARTS AND IDEASHarry, unbuttoned“Spare” at a bookstore in London yesterday.Andrew Testa for The New York Times“Spare,” Prince Harry’s memoir, is an emotional and embittered book, my colleague Alexandra Jacobs writes in her review.“Like its author, ‘Spare’ is all over the map — emotionally as well as physically,” Alexandra writes. The entire project is mired in a paradox, she writes: Harry is demanding attention, despite his stated effort to renounce his fame.Above all, “Spare” is a bridge-burner, our London bureau chief writes. Harry frames his family as complicit in a poisonous public-relations contest, dashing hopes for a reconciliation anytime soon. He is raunchy, joking about a frostbitten penis and how he lost his virginity. He’s vindictive: He details fights with Prince William, portraying his brother as ill-tempered, entitled and violent. And he grieves his mother, Princess Diana, his repressed recollections unlocked by therapy and a whiff of her perfume.The deepening rift could complicate King Charles III’s coronation, planned for May. And the memoir may also finally exhaust the public’s patience with the self-exiled couple, even in the U.S. Still, the ubiquitous coverage is unlikely to damage sales, at least in the short term. Here are 11 takeaways from the tell-all.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
      Yakisoba is a Japanese stir-fried noodle dish with a tangy-sweet sauce.What to WatchHere’s what Times staff think should win at the Oscars.What to ReadIn “The Half Known Life,” a secular seeker visits holy sites to study ideas of the world beyond.How to WorkFocus like it’s 1990.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Messy situation (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Tell us about your reading goals for 2023.“The Daily” is on the meltdown of Southwest Airlines over the holidays.Questions? Comments? Email me at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Your Thursday Briefing: Trump Declines to Answer Questions

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      Plus new details about explosions in Crimea and revelations about the victims of Seoul’s floods.Good morning. We’re covering Donald Trump’s decision not to answer questions in a civil inquiry and details about the victims of Seoul’s floods.Donald Trump left Trump Tower in New York City yesterday. Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesTrump sidesteps legal questionsDonald Trump declined to answer questions in a civil inquiry into his company’s business practices yesterday, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.He made the surprising gamble in a high-stakes legal interview with the New York attorney general’s office. His strategy is likely to determine the course of the investigation.Trump’s office released a statement shortly after the questioning began yesterday, explaining that he “declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.” Here are live updates.Background: Since March 2019, the New York attorney general’s office has investigated whether Trump and his company improperly inflated the value of his hotels, golf clubs and other assets. Context: In his statement yesterday, Trump cast the inquiry as part of a grander conspiracy against him. He linked it to the F.B.I. search at Mar-a-Lago, his home and private club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday. Analysis: His sidestep could help him in a parallel criminal inquiry into whether he fraudulently inflated valuations of his properties.Smoke rose after explosions were heard near a Russian military air base in Crimea on Tuesday.ReutersDetails emerge about Crimea blastThe damage at a Russian air base in Crimea appears to be worse than the Kremlin initially claimed.After a series of explosions on Tuesday, Crimea’s leader declared a state of emergency and said that more than 250 people had to evacuate from their homes. Officials on the Russian-occupied peninsula said at least one person was killed and dozens more were wounded.Ukraine has not officially taken responsibility for the explosions. But a senior military official said Ukraine’s special forces and partisan resistance fighters were behind the blast. Here are live updates.Our Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine WarOn the Ground: After a summer of few conclusive battles, Ukraine and Russia are now facing a quandary over how to concentrate their forces, leaving commanders guessing about each other’s next moves.Nuclear Shelter: The Russian military is using а nuclear power station in southern Ukraine as a fortress, stymying Ukrainian forces and unnerving locals, faced with intensifying fighting and the threat of a radiation leak.Ukrainians Abroad: Italy already had the biggest Ukrainian community in Western Europe before the war, but Russia’s invasion put a spotlight on the diaspora and forged a stronger sense of national identity.Prison Camp Explosion: After a blast at a Russian detention camp killed at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war, Ukrainian officials said that they were building a case of a war crime committed by Russian forces.Analysis: The blasts could be important, because any Ukrainian attack on Russian forces in the Crimean Peninsula would be a significant expansion of Ukraine’s offensive efforts. Until now, Ukraine has focused on pushing Russians back from territories occupied after the invasion began.Nuclear plant: Russian missiles killed 13 people near a Russian-held nuclear plant in the south, a Ukrainian official said. Russia may try to divert its electricity to Crimea, which could intensify military competition for the plant and heighten the risk of an accident.Press: Russian investigators detained a former state television journalist yesterday, months after she staged a rare on-air protest against the war in Ukraine.Rescue officials pumped water out of this home in Seoul to find a family of three dead inside.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesSouth Korea mourns flood victimsHeavy rains caused flooding in the Seoul area, which killed at least nine people. A family of three, who lived in a semi-underground room, are among the dead: a 13-year-old girl, her mother, 47, and her aunt, 48.Their deaths highlight the predicament of South Korea’s urban poor, who often live in such homes, called banjiha. (“Parasite,” which won the Academy Award for Best Film ​in 2020, dramatically depicted their flood hazard.)South Korea faces a growing housing crisis and hundreds of thousands of people in the Seoul area live in similar damp, musty quarters. They fear floods each monsoon season, but stay to find jobs, save money and educate their children in hopes of overcoming South Korea’s growing inequality.Details: The family knew the low-lying district was prone to flooding. But it was cheap and close to a welfare center where the girl’s aunt, who had Down syndrome, could get help.Quotable: “When I returned home from work, I found my banjiha under water,” one resident wrote on the web portal Naver. “It felt as if heaven had crashed down on me.”THE LATEST NEWSAsia and the PacificA U.S. Navy ship conducting a routine operation in the Taiwan Strait.U.S. Pacific Command, via Associated PressThe U.S. said it would continue operating in the Taiwan Strait in response to Chinese military drills that U.S. officials say are evolving into long-term military pressure on the island.Fumio Kishida, Japan’s leader, reshuffled his cabinet yesterday, The Associated Press reported. The move, which happened a month after the assassination of Shinzo Abe, was an effort to distance his government from the controversial Unification Church.New polling showed that New Zealand’s right-leaning coalition could have enough support to form a government, The Guardian reported. Jacinda Ardern’s popularity has plummeted.The U.S. returned 30 looted cultural artifacts to Cambodia this week.U.S. NewsU.S. stocks jumped yesterday, following news that inflation slowed in July. Here are live updates.The Justice Department charged a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard with plotting to kill John Bolton, a Trump-era national security adviser.An Afghan immigrant was charged in the shooting deaths of two fellow Muslims in Albuquerque.President Biden signed legislation to expand benefits for veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits.World NewsAntony Blinken visited Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.Pool photo by Andrew HarnikAntony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, pushed the Democratic Republic of Congo to reconsider its plans to auction parts of its rainforest to oil and gas companies. The countries agreed to jointly examine the proposed extractions.The U.S. and Iran are considering the E.U.’s “final” offer to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, before talks collapse for good.Britain faces another heat wave.An Emirati court overturned the sentence of an American rights lawyer who worked with Jamal Khashoggi. He is expected to be released.What Else Is HappeningIn several poor countries, a U.N. agency has joined with oil companies to protect drilling sites from residents’ objections.Roughly 100 days before the World Cup starts, FIFA is seeking a schedule change to let Qatar, the host nation, play in the first match.A stranded beluga whale died in France after a last-ditch mission to rescue it from the Seine river.Astronomers think they have found our galaxy’s youngest planet: It may be just 1.5 million years old, so young that its building blocks of gas and dust are still coming together.Canadians are flocking to see Serena Williams play after she announced her upcoming retirement from tennis.A Morning ReadImee Marcos, a sister of the president of the Philippines, is the film’s executive producer.Jam Sta Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFerdinand Marcos Jr. was elected president of the Philippines this year. Now, a new film paints a sympathetic portrait of his family. Instead of focusing on the torture, excess and martial law that characterized his father’s dictatorship, the film portrays the elder Marcos and his wife Imelda as victims of a political vendetta.In so doing, historians and artists say, the movie opens up a new front in the battle against misinformation in the Philippines, bringing a popular myth that circulated online during the recent election into a new, more credible domain.ARTS AND IDEASIn China’s Shandong Province, 558 memorial tablets at a Taoist temple were inscribed with the names and hometowns of people who died from Covid.Tingshu Wang/ReutersMourning Covid-19’s victimsThere have always been monuments to commemorate the loss of life from calamitous events: wars, genocides, terrorist attacks.But Covid-19 poses a unique challenge. Millions of people have died, but not in a singular event or in a single location. Now, as the death toll continues to rise, communities are building new monuments and updating existing memorials, trying to keep up with their mounting grief.“These are kind of odd memorials in that names are being added,” said Erika Doss, who studies how Americans use memorials. “They are kind of fluid. They are timeless.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookBryan Gardner for The New York TimesDrizzle seasoned drippings from this grilled chicken dish onto corn, tomatoes and red onions.What to Watch“Easter Sunday,” from the standup Jo Koy, is a charming Filipino American family comedy.TechnologyChange these default settings to make your devices more enjoyable to use.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Deep purple fruit (four letters).Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. “I let them talk”: Rick Rojas, a Times national correspondent, on how he covered the devastation of Kentucky’s floods.The latest episode of “The Daily” is about the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      The Marcos Family Gets Star Treatment in a New Philippines Film

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      A big-budget production depicts the family as victims of a political vendetta, a popular narrative during the recent presidential election in the Philippines.MANILA — Even before its opening night last week, “Maid in Malacanang” was shaping up to be the most talked-about film of the year in the Philippines.The almost two-hour drama portrays the Marcos family’s last days in the presidential palace before being forced into exile by a pro-democracy revolt in 1986.“We did everything for this country after World War II, only to be destroyed by the people who yearn for power,” a sobbing Imelda R. Marcos tells her son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in one scene. “Remember this, we will never be able to return after we leave. They will do everything so the Filipino people will hate us.”A teary-eyed Mr. Marcos, played by the young actor Diego Loyzaga, consoles his mother as he replies, “I promise, I don’t know how or when, but we will return.”The Marcoses returned to the Philippines in the 1990s, but the family’s biggest comeback happened in May, when Mr. Marcos, the son and namesake of the former dictator, was elected president in the most consequential race in three decades. The release of “Maid in Malacanang,” a big-budget production starring two famous actors, is seen as a sort of victory lap for the new president and his family.Ruffa Gutierrez, who plays former first lady Imelda R. Marcos, shooting a scene on the set of the movie “Maid in Malacanang.”Viva Films“This is a work of truth,” Imee Marcos said at the movie’s premiere. One of Mr. Marcos’s sisters, she was the movie’s creative producer and executive producer. “We waited 36 years for this story to come out.”Despite the corruption and tax evasion cases against the family, many Filipinos consider the Marcoses something like royalty, an idea that the film plays on while furthering the myth that they were victims of a political vendetta.More than 30 million people voted for Mr. Marcos in May, allowing him to clinch the presidency with the largest vote margin in more than 30 years. Nearly half the country believes the family was unjustly forced to flee.But many of Mr. Marcos’s detractors say he won the election because of a yearslong campaign to rewrite Marcos family history and the legacy of the father’s brutal dictatorship. “Maid in Malacanang,” they say, is just the latest attempt to rewrite the narrative.The movie is told through the eyes of three maids who worked for the Marcoses during the years leading up the 1986 People Power revolution, when hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets of Manila to protest against a family that they saw as corrupt.Imelda R. Marcos, left, arriving in Hawaii on Feb. 26, 1986, the day after the Marcos family’s departure into exile from the Philippines.Carl Viti/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe film portrays the former dictator, Ferdinand E. Marcos, who ruled the Philippines for over two decades, as a soft leader incapable of violence — a popular talking point among Marcos family supporters online. The movie also portrays the Marcoses as ordinary people who love simple food, even as they surround themselves with designer bags and jewelry.What the film does not mention: the widespread public anger over the family’s excesses, such as Imelda Marcos’s 1,060 pairs of shoes. Also missing is any mention of the tens of thousands of people who were tortured during martial law.“I was not alive during the term of president Marcos, but I was surprised to see a different story, different from what I heard from other people,” said Maricar Amores Faypon-Sicat, a moviegoer who saw the film on opening night.“I did not know that he wanted to avoid bloodshed, and until the last minute, he was thinking of the Filipino people,” said Ms. Amores Faypon-Sicat, 29.Darryl Yap, the director, said the decision to make the film came only after the presidential election, though he had done some preliminary work ahead of that time. He said the landslide win for Mr. Marcos was “an overwhelming testament that the Filipino people are ready to hear the side of the Marcoses.”Speaking to a select audience at the July 29 premiere, Mr. Yap said the film was the first time that viewers were given an opportunity to watch a film about the Marcos family that was not based on the opposition’s narrative.Supporters of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at his campaign headquarters during the presidential election in May. Mr. Marcos’s landslide win was “an overwhelming testament that the Filipino people are ready to hear the side of the Marcoses,” according to Darryl Yap, the director of the movie.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesNot everyone has been receptive.Members of the Roman Catholic clergy condemned the depiction of Corazon Aquino, the leader of the opposition, playing mahjong with nuns from the Carmelite monastery in Cebu Province at the height of the protests. One leader of the church has called for a boycott of the movie.Sister Mary Melanie Costillas, the head of the monastery, said the truth was that the nuns were praying and fasting during the demonstrations, fearful that the elder Mr. Marcos would find Mrs. Aquino, who was sheltering at the monastery to avoid being detained. At that time, there were reports that Mr. Marcos had issued a shoot-to-kill order against Mrs. Aquino.“The attempt to distort history is reprehensible,” Sister Costillas said in a statement. She said that the mahjong scene “would trivialize whatever contribution we had to democracy.”The actress playing Irene Marcos, the Marcoses’ youngest child, fueled outrage after she likened the accusations against the family and the details of the father’s human rights abuses to “gossip.”Corazon Aquino, right, a leader of the opposition, during a rally in February 1986. Members of the clergy have condemned how she and the nuns who sheltered her are portrayed in the movie.Romeo Gacad/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHistorians and artists say the movie has opened up a new front in the battle against misinformation in the Philippines, taking something that was once mostly online and bringing it into a new domain.“I now feel that the struggle has shifted to the cultural sphere,” said Bonifacio Ilagan, 71, a renowned playwright. He said that the movie mainly targets the younger generation who never experienced martial law. “They are vulnerable to disinformation. They are the market of the film because they lack historical sense.”Mr. Ilagan, who was tortured during the Marcos years, has teamed up with Joel Lamangan, a well-known movie director, to make a film to counter the narrative of “Maid in Malacanang.” Mr. Lamangan was the first member of the local directors guild to publicly denounce the Marcos-backed film as “pure nonsense,” which he said resulted in death threats.They expect financing their project to be a challenge. “It will be an uphill climb because we have no producer and we have no money,” said Mr. Lamangan, 69, who is also a martial law victim. “But we are trying to do crowdfunding.”The Wall of Remembrance at the martial law museum in Manila. The museum honors those who struggled against the dictatorship of Ferdinand E. Marcos.Ezra Acayan for The New York Times“Maid in Malacanang” was bankrolled by a major local film production company known for producing blockbusters in the Philippines.The underlying narrative of the film is centered on the legacy of the elder Mr. Marcos and how people will remember him. In one scene, a wistful Mr. Marcos asks Irene as she begs him to leave the palace: “How will I face my grandchildren? Their grandfather is a soldier, but he retreated from war.”A weeping Irene responds: “I will make sure that the truth will come out and history will tell your grandkids who you really are.”Mr. Marcos tells his daughter that the opposition was “mad at us because we come from the province. They are mad at us because the people love us. But still, I can’t make myself get angry at them.”At the premiere, the audience applauded. More

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      Robredo Admits Defeat in Philippine Presidential Election

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      Leni Robredo urged her supporters, many of them young voters, to accept her defeat but didn’t refer to Ferdinand Marcos Jr. by name.QUEZON CITY, Philippines — Leni Robredo, the outgoing vice president of the Philippines, acknowledged on Friday her loss in one of the most consequential presidential elections in the country’s history, urging her supporters to accept the results of the vote and to keep fighting disinformation.Speaking at a rally at the Ateneo de Manila University, where thousands of her supporters had gathered, Ms. Robredo did not mention the apparent winner, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the country’s late dictator.Protests against Mr. Marcos erupted after preliminary results on Monday night showed that he had won by the biggest margin in more than three decades. But the election had been marred by complaints of vote buying and broken ballot-counting machines.Ms. Robredo said that her team was still looking into the reports of voter fraud but stressed that “as the picture becomes clearer, we need to start accepting that the results of the elections did not go according to our plan.”“We need to accept the majority’s decision,” she said. “I plead that you join me in this cause.”Ms. Robredo then criticized the “massive machinery to spread hate and lies,” without elaborating. “This stole the truth, as it also stole our history and future,” she said.Disinformation isn’t unique to the Philippines, but it has flourished in recent campaigns. The outcome of this election shows how the Marcos family has been successful, at least in part, in rebranding its legacy. It has told Filipinos to “move on” from its sordid past and emphasized that the violent 20-year rule of Ferdinand E. Marcos was marked by dozens of infrastructure projects and strong economic growth.“I will channel all my energy in fighting lies,” Ms. Robredo said. “And I ask you to join me in this fight.”Ms. Robredo greeting supporters after speaking on Friday. Although she didn’t offer a formal concession, her remarks acknowledged her almost certain defeat.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesMany of the young supporters in the crowd cried when they saw her take the stage. In the months leading up to the election, hundreds of thousands of them had mounted an unprecedented grass-roots movement, going door to door to campaign for the only woman in the race. Her supporters saw her as the antithesis to Mr. Marcos, touting her as a leader with a track record who could bring about change.Ms. Robredo’s remarks came after her running mate, Senator Francis Pangilinan, who ran for vice president, told their supporters that “the fight is still far from over, especially at this point when lies and deceit are gaining ground.”Understand the Philippines Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4A consequential election. More

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      Philippines Election: Marcos Win Draws Protests

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      Young voters who had rallied around Leni Robredo during the presidential race gathered to voice their frustration with preliminary results showing her overwhelming defeat.MANILA — Angry young voters gathered in the Philippines on Tuesday to protest against Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the former dictator, who clinched a landslide victory this week in one of the most divisive presidential elections in the country’s recent history.Multiple election observers said they had received thousands of reports of election-related anomalies since the vote on Monday. Malfunctioning voting machines were one of the biggest concerns, with VoteReportPH, an election watchdog, saying the breakdowns had “severely impaired this electoral process.”On Tuesday, Leni Robredo, Mr. Marcos’s closest rival in the race and the country’s current vice president, said that her team was looking into reports of voter fraud. But every opinion poll before the election had predicted that Mr. Marcos would win by a huge margin, and his lead by Tuesday was so overwhelming that reports of fraud and malfunctioning machines were unlikely to sway the result.Mr. Marcos, known by his childhood nickname, “Bongbong,” had racked up nearly 31 million votes by 4:30 p.m., according to a preliminary tally. That was more than double the number of votes that Ms. Robredo had, giving Mr. Marcos the biggest margin of victory in more than three decades. Voter turnout was around 80 percent, an election official said Tuesday.During his campaign, Mr. Marcos appealed to a public disillusioned with democracy in the Philippines, a country of 110 million and the oldest democracy in Southeast Asia. Yet for many Filipinos, the Marcos family name remains a byword for excess and greed, and a painful reminder of the atrocities committed by the father.Riot police were deployed in Manila on Tuesday to protect election commissioners. The vote this week was one of the most divisive presidential elections in modern Philippine history.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesMr. Marcos’s 92-year-old mother, Imelda Marcos, was sentenced to up to 11 years in 2018 for creating private foundations to hide her unexplained wealth, but remains free. She posted bail, and her case is under appeal by the Supreme Court. Critics fear Mr. Marcos could use the presidency to scrap that case and other outstanding cases against the family.Dozens of mostly young voters gathered in a park across from the elections commission building on Tuesday morning to protest the election results and Mr. Marcos, chanting, “Thief, thief, thief!” and “Put Imelda in jail.” Riot police stood watch over the demonstrations.Paula Santos, a doctor in training, confronted the officers: “Personally, I am scared,” she told them. “I am turning 27 and I am scared for our future, especially now that I’m an adult. When I was young, I did not care about politics. But now I am having goose bumps because of fear.”In the months leading up to the election, hundreds of thousands of Ms. Robredo’s young supporters had campaigned door to door, seeking to fight an online disinformation campaign that portrayed the violent Marcos regime as a “golden age” in the country’s history.Ms. Santos told the officers that she had supported the younger Mr. Marcos when he ran against Ms. Robredo for the vice presidency in 2016 “because of the beautifully crafted posts and infographics I saw on YouTube.” “But then I saw other accounts, I did my research,” she said. “Knowing the truth is now in your own hands.”“We’re not here to rewrite history,” she added. “We’re here to learn from it.”In an interview later, Ms. Santos said that she and her 17-year-old sister cried on election night. Both of them had campaigned for Ms. Robredo. “I was expecting a close fight,” she said. “I didn’t expect it to be such a big gap between numbers. It was hard to believe.”Members of the Catholic church praying in front of the elections comission building in Manila on Tuesday. Jes Aznar for The New York TimesAcross the country, many voters shared in her disbelief.Recrimination and regret prevailed among some Filipinos as they considered the possibility of another Marcos as president, 36 years after millions of their countrymen ousted the Marcos family for looting billions of dollars from the treasury.Robert Reyes, a Roman Catholic priest who spent every Wednesday for the past 11 weeks outside the elections commission building demanding a clean vote, said the Catholic Church had failed to “denounce evil.” The Catholic church, which has outsize influence in the Philippines, played a crucial role in overthrowing the Marcos dictatorship during the 1986 “People Power” uprising.“Hopefully this will wake up the church,” Father Reyes said. “Because what moral authority does the son of a dictator who has not returned what his father has stolen have? What authority does he have to govern a country whose people were plundered by his father?”Ms. Robredo has stopped short of formally conceding the race. On Tuesday, she told her supporters to accept “whatever the final result will be.”“I do not consider this a loss because we have achieved many things this election season,” she said, speaking during a Catholic Mass in Bicol Region, where she is from.She has hinted at a bigger role for her broad-based movement, which she said “will not die at the close of counting.”Vote counting could continue through the end of the week. By Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Marcos had yet to deliver a victory speech. But in a statement, Victor Rodriguez, Mr. Marcos’s spokesman, said his “unassailable lead” meant that “the Filipino people have spoken decisively.”“To those who voted for Bongbong, and those who did not, it is his promise to be a president for all Filipinos,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “To the world, he says: Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions.”Demonstrators faced off with riot police officers in Manila on Tuesday.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesSara Duterte, the daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte and Mr. Marcos’s running mate, had garnered 31.5 million votes by Tuesday, more than triple the votes of Senator Francis Pangilinan, who ran as vice president in support of Ms. Robredo.Mr. Duterte has been accused of rolling back democratic institutions during his six years as president. Opponents have warned that the alliance between the Marcoses and the Dutertes could usher in a new era of autocracy in the Philippines.Mr. Marcos and Ms. Duterte are expected to take office on June 30.As the protests continued outside the elections commission building on Tuesday, demonstrators held up signs that said, “Never again,” and “Fight Marcos, reject Duterte.”Maria Socorro Naguit, 72, a freelance writer at the protest, said she was 22 when the Marcos regime, during a crackdown on the press, shut down the magazine she worked for. “I’m here because it’s too much, you know?” Ms. Socorro Naguit said. “Honestly, I cannot countenance the return of the Marcoses.”Watching the results come in on Monday night, Ms. Socorro Naguit said her first reaction was letting out curse words. “And I thought of the republic. Oh my god,” she said.For Mirus Ponon, a first-time voter in Manila, Election Day was marked by excitement. The 20-year-old university student and civil rights activist stood in line for five hours to cast his vote for Ms. Robredo.The euphoria didn’t last long. Several hours later, he was crying.“You could see it coming from a standpoint of the structured propaganda and the machinery of the Marcoses,” he said. “But it’s something that makes you so depressed, as someone who loves the country. You want to continue to fight, yet the country and its people fail you.”Camille Elemia More

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      The Man Who Could Ruin the Philippines Forever

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      Ferdinand Marcos Jr., known as Bongbong, was convicted of tax evasion. He also lied about his academic degree, according to Oxford University. Victims of his father’s brutal regime — which lasted for 20 years until his ouster in 1986 — accuse the younger Mr. Marcos of whitewashing history.Yet Mr. Marcos, the unapologetic heir of the family that plundered billions of dollars from us Filipinos, is — absent a major upset — poised to win the presidential election on May 9.This is possible only because our democracy has long been ailing. Disinformation is rewriting our past and clouding our present. Filipinos are disillusioned with our system of government. And the impunity of family dynasties in politics has gutted its two essential functions: to allow us to fairly choose our leaders and to hold them accountable for how they fail us. The return to power of the Marcoses may deal it the final blow.It’s heartbreaking to remember what could have been. Thirty-six years ago, Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s “constitutional authoritarianism,” as he described his government, came to an end when his family fled the country after millions of Filipinos united to support Corazon Aquino, the widow of an assassinated senator whose popularity had threatened the regime’s control. We flooded the streets and won back our freedom and, in 1987, wrote a new Constitution to guide our country. Democracy seemed to have repudiated autocracy.But over the years, our leaders’ broken promises accumulated and led to our disenchantment. Administration after administration was blighted by dysfunction, corruption and injustice. Year after year, our elected representatives refused to pass laws prohibiting political dynasties, despite the fact that our Constitution had tasked them with doing so.The new millennium eventually brought better governance and much-vaunted economic momentum, yet too many Filipinos remained marginalized. In 2011, for example, a mere 40 individuals reaped more than three-fourths of our country’s wealth increase. And a good part of our country’s economic growth came from the millions of Filipinos who were forced abroad to seek, and remit, their livelihood. All while crime, drugs and inequality persisted across our homeland.Throughout those three decades of our hard-won democracy, its most vital function — letting the people choose who will represent us — was perverted by entrenched politicians. Call it the dictatorship of dynasties. As of 2019, some 234 families, in a country of nearly 110 million people, held 67 percent of the legislature, 80 percent of governorships and 53 percent of mayoralties.Our democracy’s other main function — allowing us to hold our leaders accountable — has also been hijacked. When Rodrigo Duterte won the presidency in 2016 by promising to sacrifice democratic freedoms for bullet-fast results against crime and corruption, that came to include the dismantling of checks and balances that could prevent or punish his abuse of power.Institutions that could hold him to account for the thousands of deaths from his drug war were stacked with lackeys. The coequal branches of the legislature and judiciary were brought under the presidency’s heel. Laws were weaponized to control speech and dissent. The news media was both kicked and muzzled as the public’s watchdog, and orchestrated falsehoods and historical revisionism now inundate the 92 million Filipinos on social media, who get our news mostly online.In other ways, too, Mr. Duterte is responsible for normalizing authoritarianism, which may be yet another thing Mr. Marcos effortlessly inherits. One of Mr. Duterte’s first actions as president in 2016 was to transfer the elder Mr. Marcos’s preserved corpse from the family’s refrigerated mausoleum for burial in our national cemetery of heroes. And Mr. Duterte’s daughter, Sara, is now campaigning with the younger Mr. Marcos and is the leading candidate for vice president, who is elected separately from the president.Despite the incumbent’s apparent disdain for Mr. Marcos — Mr. Duterte has implied that he is a weak leader and a drug user — their shared affinities are undeniable as the younger pair promises to continue Mr. Duterte’s grim legacy.Their popularity indicates that our past fight for democratic freedom has been largely forgotten, with 56 percent of the Filipino voting population now between ages 18 and 41. A 2017 poll found that half of us Filipinos favor authoritarian governance, and an alarming number of us even approve of military rule. Yet the same poll showed that 82 percent of us say we believe in representative democracy. The contradiction seems to overlook what our history teaches about our giving leaders unchecked power.No wonder we elected Mr. Duterte, who has bragged about being a killer. No wonder we’re poised to re-elect a family of thieves. And no wonder Mr. Marcos thrives as a mythmaker — varnishing himself and his family as harmless underdogs, victims of theft by an untouchable elite who stole his vice presidency, his parents’ tenure over our country’s so-called golden age and his family’s right to control their own narrative against what he calls “propaganda” and “fake news.”Yet even as Mr. Marcos casts himself as the heir to his family’s dynasty, he refuses to acknowledge its many proven crimes, much less be held complicit for his role in defending the dictatorship. He has also pledged to protect Mr. Duterte from the International Criminal Court and has formed a political cartel with the Dutertes and two past presidents, who were both jailed for corruption. Worst of all, he has relentlessly shrugged off the facts of our nation’s history, telling everyone to “move on” from its long struggle against the authoritarianism he and his family led.But as the present hurtles forward on May 9, the truths of our past matter more than ever. From that history, a martyred writer and our national hero, José Rizal, reminds us: “There are no tyrants where there are no slaves.” Yet so many of us have been shackled before by so many of those we freely elected to entrust our future to — from Adolf Hitler to Vladimir Putin to another brazen liar also named Ferdinand Marcos.Miguel Syjuco, a former contributing Opinion writer, is the author, most recently, of “I Was the President’s Mistress!!: A Novel.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Ahead of Election, Young People in the Philippines Rally Around Leni Robredo

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      As the election in the Philippines nears, tens of thousands of young people who fear another Marcos presidency are rallying around Leni Robredo, the country’s vice president.VALENZUELA CITY, Philippines — John Benvir Serag knocked on doors in the working-class neighborhood, wearing his pink “Youth Vote for Leni” T-shirt and holding a stack of fliers. He has spent nearly every day in the past month trying to explain to strangers why Leni Robredo is the best person to lead the Philippines.“What are you looking for in a president?” Mr. Serag asked an older woman, ahead of the country’s presidential election in May.“Of course, someone who does not steal,” she responded.“Right! Leni has no trace of corruption,” Mr. Serag said. “Also, she is not a thief.”Anyone who made eye contact with the 26-year-old Mr. Serag in this neighborhood was an opening. Questions about her proposal for clean government? Needed more information about her plans for farmers and businesses?In the past six years, many young people in the Philippines have grown increasingly disenchanted with President Rodrigo Duterte’s leadership: both his brutal war on drugs and his approach to the pandemic. They have watched men and boys being gunned down in the streets and experienced the mental toll from a prolonged shutdown of schools, two years and running.John Benvir Sera, 26, a junior high school teacher, is among the many young volunteers for Ms. Robredo.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesIn this election, many have come out in full force for Ms. Robredo, the country’s vice president, who is an outspoken critic of Mr. Duterte and a frequent target of his insults. They are facing long odds, with Ms. Robredo polling a far second behind the front-runner, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the only son and namesake of the late dictator.They are also fighting a wave of disinformation that has recast the Marcos dictatorship as what supporters of the younger Marcos call a “golden age.” Some of their peers are swayed by YouTube videos that portray Mr. Marcos as a cool parent, while some among an older generation are nostalgic for strongman rule.Presidential elections in the Philippines have long been a contest for the hearts of young Filipinos. This time, at least half of the record 65 million registered voters are between the ages of 18 and 30.But they have rarely been marked by this level of passion and intensity. As of Feb. 25, two million volunteers had signed up for Ms. Robredo’s campaign, according to Barry Gutierrez, her spokesman. Many of them are first-time voters or too young to vote. Her rallies have drawn tens of thousands of people.Supporters of Ms. Robredo preparing to go house-to-house in Manila to campaign for her. Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York Times“It’s like my mom’s a rock star every time she goes around, and this is something very surprising to us,” said Tricia Robredo, one of Ms. Robredo’s daughters. “Especially because we’ve been going off our experience the past six years where my mom has been very vilified online.”Dozens of groups have sprouted up, combining their shared interests in K-pop and Taylor Swift with getting the vote out for Ms. Robredo. The “Swifties4Leni” wear T-shirts with the hashtag #OnlyTheYoung, referencing Ms. Swift’s track about youth empowerment against the “big bad man and his big bad clan.”Many of Ms. Robredo’s young supporters are united in their desire to prevent another Marcos from becoming president. Aside from the human rights abuses committed during his father’s 20-year rule, Mr. Marcos — who is known by his nickname, Bongbong — has been convicted of tax fraud, refused to pay his family’s estate taxes, and misrepresented his education at Oxford University.Many of Ms. Robredo’s young supporters are united in their desire to prevent another Marcos from becoming president. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the only son of the late dictator, is leading in the polls.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesMs. Robredo, a lawyer and an economist, beat Mr. Marcos narrowly in 2016 to win the vice presidency, which is separately elected from the presidency. She has vowed to stop the extrajudicial killings in the drug war. During the pandemic, she sent medical equipment to patients and dispatched supplies to frontliners. She has helped marginalized communities and is usually one of the first top officials to visit disaster-stricken sites.Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Ms. Robredo’s young volunteers has been the wave of disinformation that has lionized the Marcos era and vilified Ms. Robredo as a communist. Spliced videos have also portrayed her as stuttering and unintelligent.Tsek.ph, an independent fact-checking project in the Philippines, found that Mr. Marcos has benefited the most from disinformation this year, while Ms. Robredo has been its biggest victim so far. The group said that of more than 200 election-related posts it analyzed, 94 percent targeted Ms. Robredo; only 10 percent went after Mr. Marcos.“It’s a little late for us to fight that disinformation,” said Mr. Serag, a junior high school teacher who goes by V.J. “But we’re still doing it, even if it’s a little too late. That’s what pushed me to be active.”Preparing campaign literature for Ms. Robredo. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Ms. Robredo’s young volunteers has been a wave of disinformation targeting her.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesOn a recent Thursday, Mr. Serag led a team of 20 other volunteers in the neighborhood of Gen T. de Leon, where posters of Mr. Marcos and his running mate, Sara Duterte, the president’s daughter, were plastered outside many homes.Just a week before, several of Mr. Marcos’s supporters in the next neighborhood had dumped a bucket of water on them.“What are you looking for in a president?” Mr. Serag asked a middle-aged woman who runs a stall.“Someone who can help us find jobs,” the woman replied.“Leni has set aside a budget of 100 million for small and medium enterprises and when it comes to employment —” Mr. Serag began, before he was cut off.Dozens of groups have sprouted up, combining their shared interests in K-pop and Taylor Swift with getting the vote out for Ms. Robredo. Above, one such group, K-Pop Stans for Leni.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York Times“Isn’t Leni a ‘yellow?’” the woman asked, referring to the “yellow” Liberal Party. The party of the Aquino family, which has produced two former presidents, has been seen by some as an elitist group that has failed to improve the lives of ordinary Filipinos.“No, she’s independent,” Mr. Serag responded. He pressed on: “Even if we do away with the political colors, yellow or whatever, let’s think about what she really has done. She really has helped a lot of communities.”The youth vote remains divided between Ms. Robredo and Mr. Marcos. Many young people remain big fans of Mr. Marcos — a survey has shown that seven out of 10 Filipinos aged 18 to 24 want him to be president. The country’s textbooks dwell little on the atrocities of the Marcos era. Mr. Marcos’s young supporters say they enjoy watching his YouTube videos, which often feature his family in game-show segments.One volunteer on Mr. Serag’s team, Jay Alquizar, 22, had a speaker blasting a rap and pop jingle touting Ms. Robredo’s achievements, which he carted through the streets. A group of teenage boys cycled past him. Some shouted Mr. Marcos’s initials: “BBM, BBM!”A campaign rally for Ms. Robredo. Presidential elections in the Philippines have long been a contest for the hearts of young Filipinos.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesMr. Alquizar spoke into his microphone. “We are not here for a fight, we just want to inspire you,” he said. “That is what we see as the young. You need to see that, too. Because the future is not only for you. It’s for the next generation.”Mr. Alquizar said he was inspired, in part, by his grandfather, a former police officer, who was tortured during the Marcos regime after speaking out against human rights violations. “The word ‘sorry’ from the Marcos family,” he said in an interview. “We just want to hear that from them.”In past elections, the youths in the Philippines were mostly concerned about bread-and-butter issues such as jobs. They were often frustrated by the political dynasties that dominated the establishment, but felt there was little they could do to change it. Youth turnout in the 2016 election was about 30 percent, compared with 82 percent for the general population.Maria Tinao, 16, a high school student in the city of Caloocan, said she was always disillusioned about politics, believing officials had joined government just to enrich themselves. A self-professed “pageant fanatic,” she had been more focused on winning beauty contests and listening to K-pop than thinking about her country’s leaders.Then in 2017, Kian Loyd delos Santos was shot twice in the head.A supporter of Mr. Marcos, in blue, debating volunteers from Youth Vote for Leni. Some supporters of the Mr. Marcos have cast his father’s dictatorship as a “golden age.”Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesHis death shook Ms. Tinao. He was 17. The police officers who shot him were found guilty of his murder.In January, Ms. Tinao saw an interview with Ms. Robredo and was impressed. She started researching the vice president’s stance on the drug war. Although she was too young to vote, she wanted to work on swaying people who could.“We want a change, a real change for this country,” Ms. Tinao said.For the next few months, Ms. Tinao was relentless in talking about Ms. Robredo’s policies to her mother.“I was annoyed at first,” said Monica Tinao, 43, a volunteer church worker, who was considering voting for Isko Moreno, the mayor of Manila.But she remained curious about the appeal of Ms. Robredo. In March, she decided to attend a rally for the candidate. She saw the young volunteers distribute free food and water. Her daughter was in front of the stage.That night, the elder Ms. Tinao, who lives in a neighborhood of Marcos supporters, found her daughter’s banner promoting Ms. Robredo and strung it up on her front gate.Ms. Robredo onstage during a campaign rally in Pampanga, the Philippines, in April. Her rallies have drawn tens of thousands of people.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesJason Gutierrez More

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      Ahead of Philippines Election, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Rises

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      Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has spent his political career trying to rehabilitate the family name. As the front-runner in the upcoming election, he may finally succeed.MANILA — They bopped along to the beat of a martial law anthem updated into a pop tune. They cheered when an A-list celebrity proclaimed that the spirit of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the former dictator, was alive. And when Mr. Marcos’s son and namesake held up the peace sign made popular by his father a generation ago, the shrieking crowds mirrored it in return.It is election season in the Philippines, and history is being rewritten, one campaign rally at a time.Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has spent decades defending his family’s name against accusations of greed and corruption and downplaying the legacy of his father’s brutal rule. During his presidential campaign, he has portrayed himself as a unifier, while false narratives online reimagine his father’s regime as a “golden era” in the nation’s history.Now, as patriarch of the Marcos dynasty, Mr. Marcos is expected to be the first person to win the presidential election in the Philippines by a majority in more than three decades.The race is being cast as a competition between those who remember the past and those who are accused of trying to distort it, the last chapter in a brazen attempt to absolve the Marcoses of wrongdoing and quash any effort to hold the family accountable. Five years of President Rodrigo Duterte — a strong Marcos ally known for his bloody war on drugs and for jailing his critics — may have presaged a Marcos family comeback.“It will determine not just our future but our past,” said Maria Ressa, a journalist and Nobel Prize winner who is an outspoken critic of both Mr. Duterte and Mr. Marcos.Supporters at a rally cheering for Mr. Marcos, who has spent decades defending his family’s name against accusations of greed and corruption.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesThe Marcoses are accused of looting as much as $10 billion from the government before fleeing to Hawaii in 1986, when the peaceful “People Power” protests toppled the Marcos regime. The family returned to the country shortly after the death of the elder Mr. Marcos in 1989.Despite the exile, the Marcos name never truly left the political establishment.Mr. Marcos, known by his boyhood nickname, “Bongbong,” served as vice governor, governor and congressman in Ilocos Norte, the family stronghold, for most of the period between the 1980s and 2010. That year, he entered the national political scene when he was elected senator. Imelda Marcos, his 92-year-old mother, ran for president twice and lost in the 1990s.Rehabilitating the family name has been a recurring theme. Over the decades, the Marcoses have sought to target young voters with no memory of martial law or the torture and killing of political prisoners. Fifty-six percent of the voting population in the Philippines is aged between 18 and 41, and most did not witness the atrocities of the Marcos regime — ideal circumstances for the spread of disinformation, opponents say.A voter holding a portrait of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the dictator, and his wife, Imelda Marcos. The Marcoses are accused of looting as much as $10 billion from the Philippine government before fleeing to Hawaii in 1986. Jes Aznar for The New York TimesIn January, Twitter said it had removed more than 300 accounts promoting Mr. Marcos’s presidential bid for violating rules on spam and manipulation. The influential Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines said in a statement that it was appalled by the “historical revisionism” in the election, and “the attempt to delete or destroy our collective memory through the seeding of lies and false narratives.”Mr. Marcos’s spokesman, Vic Rodriguez, said there was “no certainty” that the Twitter accounts belonged to his supporters. Last week, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said it had suspended more than 400 election-related accounts, pages and groups for violating its standards. The company cited a video on Mr. Marcos’s official Facebook page that falsely accused his election rival, Leni Robredo, who is vice president, of cheating in the 2016 vice-presidential race. (The president and vice president are elected separately in the Philippines.)Several groups have sought to disqualify Mr. Marcos’s candidacy, pointing to a 1995 tax evasion conviction and the $3.9 billion in estate taxes that his family still owes the government. Mr. Marcos, 64, has brushed off the attacks as “fake news,” and refused to participate in nearly all presidential debates.Instead, Mr. Marcos has used social media to reach a captive audience online, reviewing viral TikTok dances and agreeing to makeovers.Live streaming Mr. Marcos’s motorcade south of Manila. Instead of participating in debates, Mr. Marcos has used social media to reach a captive audience online, reviewing viral TikTok dances and agreeing to makeovers.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesAt a rally in Las Piñas, Ella Mae Alipao, 15, said that she got most of her news about Mr. Marcos from TikTok and Facebook, and that she did not “believe much in books.” After Mr. Marcos’s father was ousted, Ms. Alipao said, “the Filipinos found out how good he was; that’s when they realized that they should have made him president for a longer time.”Mr. Marcos has made similar comments: “I’m not going to vindicate my father’s name because his name doesn’t need vindication,” he said in 1995. “I am so confident that history will judge him well.”In the 36 years since the father was ousted, many Filipinos have become disillusioned with the country’s democracy. Poverty is widespread, income inequality remains high and few people trust their elected leaders. When Mr. Duterte came to power, he promised radical change, ushering in a new era of strongman politics that has been embraced by many across the country.The names of those who died during the Marcos regime are etched on a wall at a memorial site in Quezon City. Opponents fear a Marcos victory would amount to rewriting history.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesMr. Duterte formed an alliance with the Marcoses early in his six-year presidential term. In 2016, he arranged for the father’s body to be moved tothe Philippines’ equivalent of Arlington National Cemetery, despite protests. And it was not until Sara Duterte, Ms. Duterte’s daughter, made the surprise announcement that she would run for vice president instead of president that Mr. Marcos gained his large lead in the polls.In recent weeks, the opposition has been working furiously to counter the false narratives online about the Marcoses. Sergio Osmena III, a former political prisoner, senator and a grandson of the fourth president of the Philippines, said he had hired 10,000 volunteers to wage a counteroffensive against the Marcos campaign by releasing videos on the economic devastation and human rights violations of the Marcos years.“It’s probably too late,” he said.The Marcoses have been remarkably adept at avoiding jail time. Mr. Marcos was sentenced to up to three years in prison in 1995 for tax-related convictions, but his sentence was overturned on appeal two years later, even though his conviction remained on the books. In 2018, his mother was sentenced to up to 11 years in prison for creating private foundations to hide her unexplained wealth. She posted bail, and the Supreme Court is still reviewing her appeal.Waiting to catch a glimpse of the Marcos motorcade south of Manila. “I’m not going to vindicate my father’s name because his name doesn’t need vindication,” Mr. Marcos said in 1995. Jes Aznar for The New York TimesThe government has recovered just $3.3 billion of the estimated $10 billion that the Marcoses are accused of stealing, but $2.4 billion in assets are still under litigation, with various groups tussling over them. Should Mr. Marcos win the presidency, many fear those proceedings, along with the $3.9 billion in estate taxes, will be swept away, cementing the false idea that the Marcoses are innocent.Among some young voters, that view has already taken hold. “If he is a thief, how come he hasn’t been jailed?” asked Rjay Garcia, a 19-year-old rug salesman, at a recent rally in the city of Santa Rosa. Mr. Garcia said that he believed the cases against Mr. Marcos’s family were meant “to destroy his reputation,” and that he had “never heard” of the People Power protests.Even those with intimate memories of the country’s struggle for democracy may feel it is time to move on.Benjamin Abalos Jr., Mr. Marcos’s campaign manager, led protests against the Marcos regime as a student council officer of the Ateneo Law School. He said he never talked about those days with his candidate. “Whatever justice was achieved in those 36 years, I think that’s already enough,” he said. “Perhaps now it’s about moving forward.”Such attitudes could signal that a full rehabilitation of the Marcos name may soon be complete. The family now includes a governor, a senator, a mayor and a possible congressman. Mr. Marcos’s eldest son, Ferdinand Alexander, 28, is running for a congressional seat in Ilocos Norte, where his cousin, Matthew Marcos Manotoc, is governor.Volunteers and supporters in front of a campaign logo for Mr. Marcos and Sara Duterte, the daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte. Mr. Marcos has seized on his alliance with the Dutertes to present himself as a unifier.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesMr. Marcos has seized on his alliance with Ms. Duterte to present himself as a unifier who is ready to lead, but his political track record is mostly thin.While in his six years in the Senate he helped pass laws on protecting older people and expanding emergency relief to children, nearly 70 percent of the 52 laws he pushed for were on designating holidays and festivals, renaming highways and reapportioning provinces and cities, a review by The New York Times found.An investigation in 2015 found that his résumé on the Senate website had been embellished to include a bachelor of arts from the University of Oxford. The university later said he did not complete his degree, but obtained instead a special diploma in social studies. Mr. Marcos has denied misrepresenting his education.Though Mr. Marcos is seen as the front-runner in the May 9 election, rallies for Ms. Robredo, the vice president, have drawn hundreds of thousands of young supporters in recent weeks. Hecklers have shouted “magnanakaw,” or “thief,” at Mr. Marcos’s motorcade, and the petitions to disqualify his candidacy are still under appeal, though experts say they are unlikely to succeed.“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” said Ms. Ressa, the journalist, recalling a quote from the author Milan Kundera. She described the election as a “microcosm of a global battle for facts.”“If facts don’t win,” she said, “we’ll have a whole new history.”Waving campaign posters and flashing the peace sign made popular by Mr. Marcos’s father, a dictator who oversaw the torture and killing of political prisoners in the Philippines.Jes Aznar for The New York Times More