Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr (second right), is endorsed as a vice presidential candidate in the May 2016 national elections by his mother, former first lady Imelda Marcos, former president Joseph Estrada (second left) and Senator Juan Ponce Enrile during a political rally in Manila yesterday.

AFP/Manila

Backed by powerful but graft-tainted politicians, the son of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos vowed to fight corruption yesterday as he launched his election bid for the vice presidency.
About 2,000 red-clad supporters cheered and chanted his name as Ferdinand Marcos Jr took to the stage in the mid-afternoon Manila heat on his first campaign rally ahead of the May 2016 vote.
“There are corrupt Filipinos... within and outside the government who are killing our economy and keeping us poor,” Senator Marcos, 58, said.
“With your help, I will lead a revolution of the heart, of ideas and of action toward real and meaningful change.”
The younger Marcos announced his plan to contest the Asian nation’s second-highest post on Tuesday, nearly three decades after a bloodless popular revolt chased his family into US exile.
Marcos Sr was accused of large-scale corruption and massive human rights abuses during his 20 years in power, but his son, popularly known as “Bongbong”, has said voters would not be swayed by these allegations.
Poverty, joblessness, a high crime rate and abysmal public transport and other basic infrastructure are what preoccupy the electorate now, he said yesterday.
People from the family’s northern powerbase, members of the urban poor, some of whom benefited from state help during the Marcos years, as well as first-time voters, showed up for the Manila rally.
James Penuliar, a 19-year-old who will be voting for the first time next year, said he has heard of the corruption allegations against the elder Marcos but was unfamiliar with the allegations of human rights abuses against the ex-president.
“They’re mere hearsay, you should not believe everything you hear,” the university student said as he sat on the grass with friends.
Luvizminda Alvarez, a jobless 56-year-old widow from Manila’s Parola seaside slum, defended Senator Marcos. “He is a helpful person, while his father was a great president,” she said.
Though running as an independent, Marcos Jr made an early statement of his intent by getting some of the opposition’s most influential power brokers to his camp.
Former president Joseph Estrada, Senate minority leader Juan Ponce Enrile and the dictator’s flamboyant widow Imelda Marcos all showed up for the hour-long political rally in a leafy garden in Manila’s old walled city, known as Intramuros.
Estrada was convicted of large-scale corruption and sent to prison six years after a bloodless military revolt unseated him in 2001, halfway into his presidency.
But he was pardoned by President Benigno Aquino’s predecessor Gloria Arroyo just 44 days later and in 2013 was elected mayor of Manila.
“Many other candidates have sought my endorsement, but when Senator Bongbong called I did not hesitate,” Estrada told the crowd yesterday, citing the 37,000 units of housing built for the urban poor ordered by Imelda Marcos in Manila in the 1970s.
“Manila residents owe them a debt of gratitude. They will make sure you (Marcos Jr) will be number one,” Estrada added.
Enrile, the elder Marcos’ long-time defence minister, led the 1986 revolt, but the two families have since reconciled.
Enrile is out on bail pending trial for allegedly plundering the equivalent of about $3.7mn in state funds.
Marcos’ heirs returned to the Philippines in the 1990s and rebuilt their political base.
Imelda Marcos now represents the northern province of Ilocos Norte in the House of Representatives, while her eldest daughter Imee Marcos is the provincial governor.