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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Political Turmoil in Pakistan

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      Plus the Philippines reopens schools and China raises interest rates.Good morning. We’re covering political turmoil in Pakistan and schools reopening in the Philippines.An expert on Pakistani politics said Imran Khan was “clearly an order of magnitude stronger” than when he was ousted as prime minister. Sohail Shahzad/EPA, via ShutterstockPolitical tensions swell in PakistanImran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister, was charged under the country’s antiterrorism act on Sunday. He is trying to stage a political comeback after he was ousted from power in April following a no-confidence vote.The charges followed a rally in Islamabad, the capital, where Khan condemned the recent arrest of one of his top aides and vowed to file legal cases against police officers and a judge involved in the case. Police said the comments amounted to an illegal attempt at intimidation.The charges represent a drastic escalation of the power struggle between Pakistan’s current government and its former leader and could set off a fresh round of public unrest and violent street protests.Analysis: Khan’s rallies have drawn tens of thousands, and his party has scored recent victories in the most populous province, Punjab, and the economic hub, Karachi. But experts say he and his supporters face a mounting crackdown aimed at curtailing their electoral successes.Details: Pakistan’s media regulatory authority imposed a ban on the live broadcast of Khan’s speeches on news television channels. Several journalists and talk show hosts, who are sympathetic to Khan, say they have been threatened by the state authorities.Classes opened across the Philippines yesterday.Aaron Favila/Associated PressThe Philippines reopens schoolsMillions of children in the Philippines returned to in-person classes yesterday, ending one of the world’s longest pandemic-related shutdowns.“We could no longer afford to delay the education of young Filipinos,” said Vice President Sara Duterte, who is also the education secretary.The lost time will be hard to make up: Even before the pandemic, the Philippines had among the world’s largest education gaps, with more than 90 percent of students unable to read and comprehend simple texts by age 10, according to the World Bank.Read More on the Coronavirus PandemicNew Guidelines: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosened its Covid-19 guidance, saying those exposed to the virus no longer need to quarantine.A Sweeping Rebuke: Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that her agency had failed to respond quickly enough to the coronavirus pandemic and needed to be overhauled.Back to School: New York City’s Education Department has rolled back most Covid restrictions ahead of the start of school on Sept. 8, reflecting a wider shift toward learning how to live with the virus.A Century-Old Vaccine: The results of clinical trials, launched in the early days of the pandemic, involving an old tuberculosis vaccine offered hope that it could provide a measure of universal protection against infectious diseases.Covid-19 may have only worsened divides. Even though the country offered online instruction during the pandemic, many students lacked access to computers or the internet.Pandemic: As other countries sent students back to classrooms, government officials and parents hesitated. They feared that schoolchildren could bring the virus to homes crowded with multiple generations of family members, potentially overtaxing a creaky health care system.Details: Schools in the Philippines have long suffered from teacher shortages, and only some schools are currently in-person five days a week. The country plans to fully reopen all of its roughly 47,000 schools by November.A dried-out riverbed of the Jialing River, a major tributary of the Yangtze River.EPA, via ShutterstockDrought roils China’s economyChina’s central bank announced that it would cut its five-year interest rate yesterday, an effort to bring a little relief to the country’s huge construction and real estate sector.The rate cut comes as record-high temperatures and a severe drought have crippled hydropower and prompted the shutdown of many factories in west-central China, an industrial base.Sichuan Province, for instance, normally generates more than three-quarters of its electricity from huge dams. The summer rainy season usually brings so much water that Sichuan sends much of its hydropower to cities and provinces as far away as Shanghai.But an almost complete failure of summer rains this year has meant that many dams now cannot generate enough electricity even for Sichuan’s own needs, forcing factories there to close for up to a week at a time and triggering rolling blackouts in some commercial and residential districts.Fallout: Sichuan’s three main rivers feed the Yangtze River, so hydropower cutbacks have also started to affect downstream areas, like the city of Chongqing and adjacent Hubei Province.Details: The central bank cut the rate by 0.15 percentage points yesterday, to 4.3 percent, and said that it was reducing a one-year interest rate by 0.05 percentage points, to 3.65 percent.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificSouth Korean howitzers took positions near the border with North Korea yesterday.Ahn Young-Joon/Associated PressThe U.S. and South Korea began their largest joint military drills in years yesterday, The Associated Press reports.More than 5,000 farmers protested in New Delhi, Reuters reports. They are pushing for minimum price guarantees and government accountability.Today, Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, plans to release a report on Scott Morrison’s secret ministerial roles, Reuters reports.A woman in South Korea may be the relative of two children whose remains were found in suitcases in New Zealand, The Independent reports.Bangladesh is closing schools for another day during the week and taking other measures to save energy, Reuters reports. The country shut down its diesel-run power plants after the war in Ukraine drove up fuel prices.Chinese censors changed the end of the new “Minions” film before releasing it, Reuters reports. In this version, police catch a rebel, and Gru, a main character, promotes family values.The War in UkraineHere are live updates.Daria Dugina, a Russian nationalist commentator.Tsargrad.Tv, via ReutersRussia blamed Ukraine for the killing of Daria Dugina, 29, an ultranationalist commentator. The allegation could not be verified. Kyiv denied involvement.Dugina’s father, who is a prominent supporter of the invasion, called for revenge.Moscow said that Dugina, not her father, was the target of the car bomb and said a suspect had fled to Estonia. The brazen attack recalled historical assassinations.What’s next: Tomorrow is Ukraine’s Independence Day — and the six-month mark of the war.What Else is HappeningDr. Anthony Fauci has advised seven presidents and spent more than half a century at the National Institutes of Health.Doug Mills/The New York TimesDr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser, plans to step down in December.Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president, has suggested that he would dispute election results if he lost in October. But the political establishment believes he lacks support to stage a coup.Eric Adams vowed to bolster nightlife around New York City. But the mayor mostly visits one pricey restaurant, run by friends with troubled pasts.A Morning ReadCarmen Abd Ali for The New York TimesAs more looted art returns to Africa, countries have wrestled with the right way to display it.Benin may have found an answer: More than 200,000 people have come to a free exhibition of pieces that were plundered by French colonial forces in the 19th century and returned last year.ARTS AND IDEASWill New Zealand change its name?New Zealand, known by some as Aotearoa.Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesIn the 1600s, the Dutch named the land now known as New Zealand for Zeeland, a western province of the Netherlands. It was intended as a companion name for “Hollandia Nova” or “New Holland,” as Australia was then known.Nearly four centuries later, a petition before Parliament asks that the country be called “Aotearoa,” which loosely translates from Maori as the “land of the long white cloud.” The Maori have used Aotearoa to refer to the country for decades, if not centuries. It is widely believed to be the name bestowed by Kupe, a Polynesian navigator — and is, increasingly, what New Zealanders and their lawmakers call their home.For now, a wholesale change seems unlikely: Polls suggest voters prefer “New Zealand” or a hybrid “Aotearoa New Zealand.” But the debate speaks to a changing climate: Amid culture war debates, Maori names are gaining traction. In 2009, New Zealand’s politicians voted against creating a holiday for Matariki, the Maori New Year. In June, it was observed nationally for the first time.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookTanveer Badal for The New York TimesKimjang, the act of making kimchi, connects Koreans across the diaspora. Eric Kim offers a recipe.What to ReadFour new books re-examine World War II.ArtMichael Heizer’s “City,” a mysterious land art megasculpture, was revealed after 50 years.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: “Guacamole ingredient” (five 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. Chang Che is joining The Times from SupChina to cover technology in Asia.The latest episode of “The Daily” is about a U.S. coal miner on strike.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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      Your Monday Briefing: Australia’s New Leader

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      Plus President Biden’s trip to Asia and catastrophic floods in India and Bangladesh.Good morning. We’re covering a change of power in Australia, President Biden’s trip to Asia and catastrophic floods in India and Bangladesh.Anthony Albanese, the next prime minister of Australia.Jaimi Joy/ReutersAustralia’s incoming Labor leaderPrime Minister Scott Morrison conceded defeat to Anthony Albanese, the incoming Labor prime minister, ending nine years of conservative leadership.The opposition Labor party made the election a referendum on Morrison’s conduct. Albanese, whose campaign was gaffe-prone and light on policy, promised a more decent form of politics, running as a modest Mr. Fix-It who promised to seek “renewal, not revolution.”Voters were most focused on cost-of-living issues, but the election was also about climate change, Damien Cave, our bureau chief in Sydney, writes in an analysis. Australians rejected Morrison’s deny-and-delay approach, which has made the country a global laggard on emission cuts, for Albanese’s vision of a future built on renewable energy.Details: In Australia, where mandatory voting means unusually high turnout, voters did not just grant Labor a clear victory. They delivered a larger share of their support to minor parties and independents who demanded more action on climate change — a shift away from major party dominance.Food: Elections in Australia come with a side of “democracy sausage” hot off the barbecue, a beloved tradition that acts as a fund-raiser for local groups and makes the compulsory trip to the voting booth feel less like a chore and more like a block party.President Biden being greeted by Park Jin, South Korea’s foreign minister.Doug Mills/The New York TimesPresident Biden visits Asian alliesOn his first trip to Asia as president, Joe Biden attempted to strengthen ties with allies rattled by Donald Trump’s erratic diplomacy and wary of Beijing’s growing influence.In Seoul on Saturday, he met with President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was inaugurated 11 days prior, and criticized Trump’s attempts to cozy up to Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s dictator. Biden and Yoon will explore ways to expand joint military exercises that Trump sought to curtail in a concession to Kim. Today in Tokyo, Biden will unveil an updated trade agreement that seeks to coordinate policies but without the market access or tariff reductions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump abandoned five years ago. The less sweeping framework has some in the region skeptical about its value.Context: Russia’s war in Ukraine snarled Biden’s original strategy of pivoting foreign policy attention to Asia. The trip is an effort to reaffirm that commitment and demonstrate a focus on countering China.Heavy rainfall flooded streets in Bangalore, India, on Friday.Jagadeesh Nv/EPA, via ShutterstockHeavy floods in India, BangladeshMore than 60 people were killed, and millions more were rendered homeless as heavy pre-monsoon rains washed away train stations, towns and villages.Extreme weather is growing more common across South Asia, which has recently suffered devastating heat waves, as the effects of climate change intensify.This year, parts of northern and central India recorded their highest average temperatures for April. Last year, extreme rainfall and landslides washed away sprawling Rohingya refugee camps overnight in Bangladesh, and in 2020, torrential rains submerged at least a quarter of the country.Context: India and Bangladesh are particularly vulnerable to climate change because of their proximity to the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. The tropical waters are increasingly experiencing heat waves, which have led to dry conditions in some places and “a significant increase in rainfall” in others, according to a recent study.Details: The Brahmaputra, one of the world’s largest rivers, has inundated vast areas of agricultural land, villages and towns in India’s remote, hard-hit northeast.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaThe Taliban have also urged women to stay home unless they have a compelling reason to go out.Kiana Hayeri for The New York TimesThe Taliban are aggressively pushing women to wear burqas and crushing rare public protests against the order.Protests continue in Sri Lanka, as citizens demonstrate against a president they blame for crashing the economy.The U.N.’s top human rights official will visit Xinjiang, where Beijing has cracked down on the Uyghur minority, and other parts of China this week. Activists say the trip holds significant risks for the credibility of her office.Some Chinese people are looking to emigrate as pandemic controls drag into their third year.The WarRussian forces attempted to breach Sievierodonetsk’s defenses from four directions but were repelled, a Ukrainian official said.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHere are live updates.Russia renewed its attack on Sievierodonetsk, one of Ukraine’s main strongholds in the Donbas region. Its forces are also trying to cross a river in the region despite having suffered a major blow there this month.In a rare acknowledgment, a Kremlin minister said that sanctions have “practically broken” the country’s logistics.Profile: The Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the invasion.Atrocities: The Times is documenting evidence of potential war crimes, like killings in Bucha, some carried out by a notorious Russian brigade. A Times visual investigation shows how Russian soldiers executed people there.World NewsThe U.S. has surpassed one million Covid deaths, according to The Times’s database.The coalition that replaced Benjamin Netanyahu is crumbling — potentially leading to new Israeli elections that could return him to power.Iran is cracking down on its filmmakers, arresting leading artists in what analysts see as a warning to the general population amid mounting discontent.Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson and Aidy Bryant are leaving “Saturday Night Live.”Tornadoes in western Germany killed one person and injured dozens more, while an unusual heat wave struck parts of Spain and France.A Morning ReadResty Zilmar recently had to return to a more urban area for work.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesFor decades, young Filipinos have left rural areas in pursuit of economic success, leading to overcrowded cities. The pandemic temporarily reversed that pattern, and many enjoy rural life. If the government makes good on stated efforts to reinvigorate the hinterlands, the shift may stick.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4On the ground. 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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      Reports of Violence Leave Philippines Voters on Edge

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      MANILA — Election violence erupted in the Philippines over the weekend and on Monday after a shooting between two groups linked to rivals for mayor left four people dead, and a grenade attack wounded nine others.The shooting occurred on Sunday in the northern province of Ilocos Sur. Separately, local police in the southern town of Maguindanao said five rounds of grenades were fired in a municipal hall, prompting an exchange of gunfire with the police. In Lanao del Sur, videos on social media showed people storming a voting center to destroy ballots and machines. An election official said the government was investigating the episode.Violence is common during elections in the Philippines, where the government has deployed 270,000 police and military personnel on Monday to thwart such attacks.Tight security was apparent at elementary schools converted into polling stations, and there were reports of broken voting machines and of some voters having difficulty locating their names on voter registration rolls. At a news conference, Marlon Casquejo, an election official, said the government had counted 143 defective machines across the country. He said these were mostly “isolated incidents,” and blamed old equipment for the problem.Later in the day, George Garcia, the election commissioner, said more than 1,800 voting machines had malfunctioned and that there were 1,100 backup machines nationwide.Analysts and election observers have described the race between Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Leni Robredo, the vice president, as an existential battle for the soul of the country, with consequences that could not be overstated.Chester Cabalza, the founder of the Manila-based research institute International Development and Security Cooperation, said that voting was not only about the next president, but about “choosing between good governance in a transparent government or a continuity of leadership tainted with lies and revised history.”Carl Merencillo, a voter in Manila who works at a construction firm, brought his wife and two young daughters to Ms. Robredo’s last campaign rally in Manila’s financial district on Saturday. By midmorning on Monday, he cast his vote for “hope,” he said.“Definitely this was for the kids. This was one way, really, for me to ensure that the future will be brighter for the kids and their generation,” Mr. Merencillo said.It took between 45 minutes and an hour for voters to cast their ballots in one precinct outside Manila, as the line snaked about a mile under the searing tropical sun. Officials tried to enforce social distancing rules to prevent the spread of Covid-19, but voters were packed cheek by jowl at many polling places.Apart from the top job, thousands of local officials, town mayors and senators are also up for election in the Philippines. There are more than 65 million registered voters in the country — a record — and election officers said that polling stations would be open until 7 p.m. 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