Last week, Adarna House – a publisher of children’s books in the Philippines – posted on social media about a discount it was offering: 20% off on a #NeverAgain book bundle. The selection includes Ito Ang Diktadura, the Tagalog translation of Equipo Plantel’s Así es la Dictadura, or This is a Dictatorship. The book was originally published in Spain when the country was transitioning from the Franco regime.
What seems like a mundane moment of online marketing was in fact a significant political act. Two days before the sale, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, the son and namesake of the late dictator, won the Philippines’ presidential election by a landslide. Marcos Sr was one of the dictators identified in the children’s book, alongside others such as Nicolae Ceaușescu, Idi Amin and Pol Pot. Under Marcos’s two-decade rule, thousands were killed, tortured and “disappeared”. The Philippines became a kleptocracy as the Marcos family and their cronies plundered up to US $10bn.
