HUGH LANNING says there is no path to peace without dismantling Israel’s control over Palestinian land, lives and resources

FILIPINOS have been suffering the Marcos dynasty’s love of spectacle since the mid-1960s when Ferdinand and Imelda took power, presenting themselves as a glamorous Hollywoodesque couple and promising a golden age of progress and prosperity.
But away from the vanity building projects and PR stunts like staged TV reports of Imelda donating homes to the poor, they built an iron-fisted dictatorship, dropped their country into masses of debt, murdered, maimed and jailed thousands and embezzled perhaps $11 billion from state coffers.
On May 9 2022, Ferdinand and Imelda’s son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr, took the presidency with 56 per cent of the vote, the highest share since his dad won in 1981 — when most other parties boycotted it.

Huge protests against corruption and preventable deaths during flooding have rocked the government — the masses are not likely to be able to take direct control in their own interests yet, writes KENNY COYLE, but it’s a promising show of people power

