The Marcos Era and Millennials: A Case of Collective Behavior

The event in social media where young Filipinos voice out that the Marcos presidency is a
golden era in Philippines government history – citing architectural, economic and political
achievements which are all proven wrong in Lourd de Veyra’s show – is a collective behavior where a
dispersed collective – the millennials – believe and spread misinformation that Filipinos experienced
better times during Marcos’ dictatorship.

The social media, being a platform for fast, uncensored and unreviewed information, gave
structural conduciveness to this collective behavior.

Also, according to the video, this group of people were born during times where the Filipino is
experiencing the fallout of the misdeeds of the Marcos administration. That being the case, the
uneducated look for the reasons of their hardships. Then, they find heavily censored and controlled
propaganda video clips of the Marcos regime and cling to the idea that it was utopia without doing
the necessary research to know the truth.

This feeling of dissatisfaction made them experience social malaise and became a structural
strain which was one of the causes of the behavior.

Additionally, the election of president Duterte and his inclination towards the Marcoses
became a precipitating factor.

Duterte being a popular strongman, brought about a generalized belief among his supporters
that the Philippines is better when governed by an authoritarian government. Thus, when they look
back at the time of Marcos, they believe that it was a promising time that was robbed from them.

Since this public opinion is so deviant from the common knowledge that the Philippines
experienced a ton of atrocities that retarded the country’s growth during the Marcos regime, it gained
more traction and spread faster.

In relation to the theories of crowd behavior, this generalized belief converged from an
unrepresentative group who watched the liberals hold power for decades and were dissatisfied by the
continuing problems in the Philippines and wanted drastic changes which they think would be brought
about by an authoritarian. This then became a contagion which was catalyzed by the anonymity the
internet brings. Uncritical people became susceptible to this, again, due to information in social media
being unreviewed and unreliable. Several emergent-norms came forth from this collective group e.g.
sticking to their position even when bombarded with factual counter-arguments, assuming that the
actions of people with different opinions are inline with a conspiracy, etc. If you deviate from this
norm, you will be branded a “dilawan” and will be bombarded with vulgar comments.