Heard about the Philippine election results :( I'm so sorry. Is there anything we can do to help?

Yeah it absolutely sucks altho tbh I’m not very surprised by the results as the elections were rigged in the first place. The Marcoses return to power has been planned since Duterte became president in 2016, the multi-million disinformation campaign, the media shut down, silencing of protestors etc., a lot of things were done to ensure his win. To be honest I dislike the international coverage of these elections since a lot of them put the blame on Filipino voters not knowing how democracy works when the Philippines has been controlled by political dynasties for decades. It’s hardly democractic.

Filipinos in the diaspora can help by going to protests in your local community and non-filipinos can help by helping preserve documents against the Marcos regime. This means keeping physical and digital copies of books like Dekada 70, Conjugal Dictatorship, Marcos Martial Law: Never Again, The Jupiter Effect etc. There’s a possibility these books will be banned. The Marcoses stay in power because they’re good at rewriting history, preserving them is essential.

Also, because I’ve seen so many cases of this, continue to support Filipino creatives. I’ve seen international clients back out in the middle of commissioning Filipino artists because ‘they don’t want to support the dictatorship’ and I find it baffling and offensive because really why blame an individual for the actions of an oppressive government. Not to mention that American artists didn’t get treated like this when a controversial leader was elected. We need international support now more than ever because foreign investors are dropping the country which leads to less jobs being generated for locals.