This week saw the people of the Philippines elect the son and namesake of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos to power -- paving the way for the return of the Marcos clan into the halls of Malacanang Palace some 36 years after they were chased out of it during the People's Power Revolution.
Many watched in awe at the apparent amnesia that struck the archipelago. After all, how could Philippine voters -- many of whom were alive when (or at least, aware of how) Marcos Sr's 20-year rule came to end -- back Bongbong, as Ferdinand Marcos Jr is more commonly known as, given his family's history of murder and plunder? Did they not remember the excesses of Imelda Marcos, the other half of the infamous conjugal dictatorship, the inspiration behind the adjective "imeldific" -- meaning 'ostentatiously extravagant, sometimes to the point of vulgarity'?
Does this mean, when it comes to politics in the region, some sins are more forgivable than others? Or worse -- does this mean democracy has no place in Southeast Asia, given the region's tendency to vote in hardliners with an apparent disdain for due processes?
