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The United States and China have welcomed Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s presidential win in the Philippines, after the son of the country’s former dictator declared victory and pledged to be a leader “for all Filipinos”.
US President Joe Biden congratulated Marcos Jr in a phone call, the White House said in a statement on Thursday, underscoring that he looks forward to working with the president-elect to continue strengthening ties with the Philippines, a longstanding treatyally of Washington.
Biden said he wants to expand bilateral cooperation on a wide range of issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, economic growth and respect for human rights.
China’s ambassador to the Philippines, Huang Xilian, also sent a congratulatory message to Marcos Jr on behalf of Chinese President Xi Jinping saying Beijing looked forward to upgrading cooperation with the next Philippine government.
With Marcos’s “vision for the Philippines and wisdom to navigate through different obstacles, I am confident that a Philippines under the next administration will surely demonstrate unity to rise above all challenges, to recover from the pandemic and to prosper,” Huang said in a statement on Facebook.
He added that Beijing looks “forward to working with the next Philippine government to upgrade our Relationship of Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation to a new height”.
The Philippines sits on the front lines of US-China tensions, while some analysts say it spells a potential blow to efforts by the US to push back against China, its main strategic rival in the Pacific.
It has also raised concern over a further erosion of democracy in the Philippines.
‘Hit the ground running’
With an initial count almost complete, Marcos Jr, popularly known as “Bongbong”, has more than 56 percent of the vote with at least twice the number of votes as his nearest rival, liberal Leni Robredo.
The win is an astonishing reversal in the fortunes of the Marcos family, who have gone from the presidential palace to pariahs and back again in the space of a few decades. It comes after a relentless online whitewashing of the family’s past, many young Filipinos leaving believing Marcos Sr’s rule from 1965 to 1986 was a golden era of peace and prosperity.
In reality, the dictator, who died in exile in 1989, left the Philippines bankrupt and impoverished, and killed, tortured and jailed tens of thousands of opponents during his corrupt rule.
Marcos Jr’s running mate Sara Duterte, the daughter of the outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, also won the vice presidency, which is separately elected, in a landslide.
In his first press conference, the incoming leader said on Wednesday that 31 million Filipinos had “voted for unity,” even as he waits for the vote counting to finish.
He pledged to “hit the ground running” when he takes office on June 30, saying the economy, prices, jobs and education to be his government’s priorities.
He refused to take questions at the end of the press conference, which lasted less than five minutes. In a statement afterwards, he announced his first cabinet pick, saying Duterte would serve as an education secretary.
There were few hints on the campaign trail of Marcos Jr’s overarching policy platform, including foreign policy, as he had snubbed televised debates and largely avoided media interviews.
But he has said he wanted to pursue closer ties with China, describing his predecessor’s policy of diplomatic engagement with Beijing as “really our only option”. That is despite a territorial dispute between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea, with Beijing refusing to recognise an international ruling that invalidated almost all of Beijing’s historical claims in the strategic waterway.
Meanwhile, Marcos Jr’s relationship with the US has been complicated by a contempt-of-court order for his refusal to cooperate with the District Court of Hawaii, which in 1995 ordered the Marcos family to pay $2bn of plundered wealth to victims of Marcos Sr’s rule.
The incoming leader has not visited the US for 15 years, fearful of the consequences of the rulings.
Washington has said such historical considerations mean there will be some initial challenges in communication between the two nations.
“Time will tell, but our desire will be to get off to a good start,” Kurt Campbell, the White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific said on Wednesday.
“We are seeking early engagement,” he said. “There are some historical considerations that probably (mean), at least initially, there will be some challenges in that communication.”
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