Is the 'Real' Bongbong Marcos Dead?

The urban legend is revived in a disqualification case.

by Arianne Merez

Photo/s: Jam Sta Rosa, Agence France-Presse

Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. is not the "real" son of the late dictator, a critic who shares the same last name claims in seeking to disqualify Marcos Jr's candidacy for president, reviving an urban legend that has been going around for years.

Tiburcio Marcos, who is also running for president, is asking the Commission on Elections to disqualify Marcos Jr. from the presidential race on the argument that the real son of the late dictator has died and the one gunning for Malacañang is an impostor.

"The principal ground that was raised was identity. Something to the effect that BBM is not BBM, it’s not the real guy,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez told reporters on Thursday.

The idea that an impostor will take over Malacañang may be an interesting plot for a teleserye but apparently, the urban legend is so persistent that Marcos Jr. had to debunk it.

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"Hindi ko nga malaman paano naumpisahan 'yang storya na iyan," Marcos Jr. said in a 2019 vlog. "Hindi na raw ako ang tunay na Bongbong, ako na raw yung kapalit."

The urban legend started in the late 1970s and has been going around since. The story goes that while Marcos Jr. was in England, he got into a fight and was killed. To protect the Marcos dynasty, his parents Ferdinand Sr. and Imelda looked for another person who looked like their son, and the "impostor" or "clone" has since been acting as Marcos Jr.--or so the story claims.

Another version of the urban legend claims that after the real Marcos Jr. died, Imelda urged her nephew to undergo plastic surgery to look like her son. The relative, based on the legend, is now the clone of Marcos Jr. that the public knows.

So is the urban legend true? Marcos Jr. only laughed it off, telling his son Sandro: “Look at my pictures when I was a kid. And why would anyone do that?"

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