IN our belief, there are two reasons why Ferdinand Marcos Jr. decisively won the last elections on the promise of bringing back the good old days under the presidency of his late father. One, the country has been in a terrible situation because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. No, not because of the way the outgoing Duterte administration governed until the coronavirus came to our shores, the Philippines' economic growth was one of the fastest in the world. The slide backwards was not only true of the country. The United Nations recently reported that for the first time in decades, the World Human Development Index fell, and global poverty levels increased considerably, especially among the poorest of the poor.
As for the other reason, those good old days did exist especially as you reminisce farther back in time. President Marcos 1 ruled so long there could be both good and bad things, successes and failures. Under the 1935 Constitution, the president had a term of four years and could be reelected for (just) one more term of four years. The Marcos era became a controversial one to historians from the moment President Marcos 1 desired to hold on to power beyond the constitutional limit. He declared martial law and had the Constitution changed, enabling him to rule as long as he wanted to.
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