Otherwise, there is nothing to applaud in the outcome — which propels to power the son and namesake of a dictator Filipinos overthrew in 1986. Mr. Marcos’s vote was roughly double the share that runner-up Leni Robredo, a stalwart of the liberal opposition to Mr. Duterte, received. He got it by running on vague promises to restore the purportedly good old days of his father’s regime. In fact, the Marcos years were a period of rampant graft and martial law.
Mr. Duterte’s reign brought new abuses, starting with his horrific campaign of police murder — in the name of crushing drug traffic — that took thousands of lives. Among many acts of repression against legitimate opposition, perhaps the most troubling was the prosecution of an elected senator and critic of Mr. Duterte’s “war on drugs,” on dubious charges of having taken bribes from traffickers. Top government witnesses retracted their testimony just about a week before the election, yet the senator, Leila de Lima, remains in police custody, as she has been since February 2017.
How, exactly, Mr. Marcos would differ from the brutal but — it must be said — popular Mr. Duterte is far from clear. One reason for the ambiguity is the essential emptiness of his just-completed campaign. Another is the fact that Mr. Marcos ran as part of what he called a “uniteam” with Mr. Duterte’s daughter Sara, who will become vice president. For the United States, whose historically close ties to the Philippines include a 1951 mutual defense treaty, the key foreign-policy consideration will be how the new president deals with China. Mr. Duterte came into office openly courting Beijing — and bashing Washington. He reversed course somewhat in the last year of his term.
Checking the Philippines’ democratic decay while preserving Manila as an ally and counterweight to China epitomizes the overall strategic challenge the Biden administration faces in Southeast Asia. At different times, Mr. Marcos has hinted he would tilt toward China or reassert the alliance with the United States; his campaign was no more coherent on foreign policy than on anything else.
“Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions,” Mr. Marcos said in a post-election statement. This was a fair request, but, since Mr. Marcos had campaigned as his father’s son, also a bit of a contradiction. It is only the first of many that the United States might have to navigate in dealing with the new Filipino president. But Washington should be clear with him on one point: America’s interests in countering China and in preserving democracy in the Philippines are inextricable.
Read More: Opinion | Ferdinand Marcos Jr. must not lead the Philippines back to the bad old days
