The president and vice president of the Philippines are at each other’s throats. But the row is a potential proxy for a much more significant conflict.
The son of notorious dictator Ferdinand Marcos is the only South-East Asian leader to take the Lowy Institute’s stage during next week’s ASEAN summit.
It’s taken a mutual wariness,and even alarm,about China’s economic coercion and territorial expansionism to bond the two nations together.
This year has been like no other in my decades in the news business,much of it dedicated to reporting on the great theatre of life – warts and all – as it is played out on these pages week after week.
Journalist Percival Mabasa,known as Percy Lapid to his followers,had accused top Philippine officials of corruption in the hard-hitting radio program that he hosted for years in Manila.
Ramos was a US-trained ex-general who played a key role in the 1986 pro-democracy uprising that ousted Ferdinand Marcos.
“My father built more and better roads,produced more rice than all administrations before his,” the new Philippines president said.
But the recent Philippines election victory of Analisa Corr’s half-brother Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos jnr means her days in relative obscurity have come to an abrupt end.
Days after winning the presidential election in the Philippines,Ferdinand Marcos jnr has quietly flown to Melbourne,where his youngest son is said to be enrolling to study.
Western powers will have to engage Ferdinand Marcos jnr despite his family’s past to ensure the Philippines does not stray into Beijing’s orbit.