Philippines spectacle of amnesia: YouTube populism rehabilitates Marcoses

Today, 35 years after the People Power Revolution, the Philippine public largely views the disgraced Marcoses not with contempt and dread but with a longing.

In the hills of Baguio, the summer capital of the Philippines, a massive head hovers above the trees. Carved on the side of Mount Pugo, La Union, the 30-meter concrete bust overlooks the northern provinces, as if gazing over its vast domain. The head is of former president and dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Yet today, his effigy is hardly recognizable. Shortly after the 1986 People Power Revolution that deposed and exiled the Marcos family, indigenous groups displaced by the bust’s construction returned to smear pig’s blood across the leader’s face. Three years later, communist rebels bombed the same bust, leaving intact