Ferdinand Marcos Jr took office on Thursday as president of the Philippines for a single six-year term, after the presidential elections in May, succeeding the controversial Rodrigo Duterte as head of state.
“You the people spoke up to give me the biggest electoral victory ever seen” in the Philippines, said Marcos Jr, who got more than 50% of the votesin a speech after taking the oath on the Constitution.
Fernando Marcos Jr. on his way to dramatic victory in the Philippine presidential election
In his first words as President, he renewed the call for national unity in a nationalist tone, full of allusions to the period of government of his father, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
“We will go far together, not separated and afraid of each other. The changes we are about to see will benefit everyone. (…) I am not here to talk about the past, but about the future. I never lost hope in reconciliation,” concluded Marcos.
Hours before the ceremony, the official transfer of power between the current president and the outgoing president, Rodrigo Duterte, who did not participate in the inauguration, took place in the presidential palace.
Marcos thus completes the return to power of the famous dynasty36 years after a popular revolution ended his father’s regime and forced the family to flee the country by helicopter.
The ceremony was attended, among others, by the wife of the current President and four children of Imelda Marcos, the matriarch of the clan that ruled the archipelago under the shadow of Marcos Sr. between 1965 and 1986, including the decade of violent martial law declared by the then leader, who died in exile in 1989.
“Let’s not look back, but look forward,” said the son of the dictator and new president of the Philippines in a half-hour speech in which he addressed Filipinos, mainly in English and with a few phrases in Tagalog, the most popular language.
Source: Observadora
