Opposition’s fate in student hands after poll drubbing

At a basketball final between two of Philippine’s top universities held two days after Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr, son and namesake of the late dictator, was elected the country’s president, spectators heeded a call to wear sombre colours in protest at his victory, writes Francesca Regalado for Nikkei Asia.

“We used the game as a platform of protest because the University of the Philippines (UP) and Ateneo de Manila University are two of the universities that have been at the forefront of fighting the Marcos regime since the ’70s,” Jonas Abadilla, president of the UP student council, told Nikkei Asia.

College campuses became fortresses against military intrusion and surveillance during the brutal 21-year rule of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. With the election of his son, a decimated opposition in Congress, and the threat of Marcosian historical revisionism, universities are once again charged with upholding their traditional role of keeping the government in check.
Full report on the Nikkei Asia site