Who is Missing Which Strongman? Competing Authoritarian Nostalgias in the Philippines

Over three years after Ferdinand Marcos Jr. won the Philippine presidency by a landslide, attention has shifted from the nostalgia he invoked for the authoritarian rule of his father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., to the power struggle between the Marcos and Duterte dynasties. The feud upended conventional wisdom about the nature of authoritarian nostalgia. It is no longer simply about yearning for a bygone dictator as support for a more liberal order waned, but has now become competitive between two “democratic” strongmen most longed for in their respective clans’ bailiwicks. It reveals how quickly public longing for a strongman can shift with new forms of historical revisionism and fresh political grievances. Since the Marcos-Duterte “UniTeam” collapsed, growing nostalgia for former President Rodrigo Duterte – magnified by his “kidnapping” to stand trial at the ICC for crimes against humanity – has diminished appreciation for Marcos Sr.'s legacy as support for his son's presidency declined. © The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work as published without adaptation or alteration, provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).