DAVOS, Switzerland — For the first time, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. said that he had no intention of entering politics, but he had to as his family's survival depended on it.
Marcos said this during his one-on-one dialogue with World Economic Forum (WEF) President Børge Brende here on Wednesday, Jan. 18.
According to Marcos, since his family was ousted in 1986 following the EDSA People Power, he did not expect that he could return to the Philippines, much less become President.
"We were in exile for six years, so we weren't sure if we were coming back at all, physically coming back," he said.
Marcos said that he tried his best to avoid politics.
"Why would I go into politics? My father has done everything in politics. Life is difficult, and I could see the sacrifices that they had to make, that he had to make to get to do a good job," he said.
"I said, maybe that's not what I'm meant to be doing," he added.
However, the tides changed when they returned to the Philippines in 1991 after their exile in the United States.
"The political issue was Marcos. And for us to defend ourselves politically, somebody had to enter politics and be in the political arena," President Marcos said.
"So that at least, not only the legacy of my father but even our own survival required that somebody go into politics," he added.
President Marcos was elected to Congress in 1992. He became a senator in 2010. He ran for vice president in 2016 but lost. He won a landslide victory in the 2022 presidential elections.