Biden congratulates Philippines' Marcos Jr on presidential election

US President Joe Biden called Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Thursday to congratulate him over his apparent landslide victory in the Philippine presidential election, Manila’s ambassador to Washington said.

Biden is among the first world leaders to recognise the electoral triumph of Marcos Jr., the namesake son of the ousted dictator whose candidacy alarmed human rights activists and pro-democracy groups.

“President Biden told him Washington is looking forward to working with him and cited the shared history of the longtime treaty allies,” Philippine Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez told The Associated Press, adding the two spoke for more than 10 minutes.

Marcos Jr had more than 31 million votes in the unofficial count from Monday’s elections in what’s projected to be one of the strongest mandates for a Philippine president in decades. His vice-presidential running mate, Sara Duterte, appeared to have also won by a landslide.

Marcos Jr cited the long robust relations between Manila and Washington and said his administration would work to continue building on that. He invited Biden to attend his inauguration on June 30 but the US leader said he was dealing with urgent concerns that may prompt him to stay in the US but would send a high-level American delegation, Romualdez said by telephone.

Marcos Jr declared victory Wednesday, saying his electoral triumph is a boost to democracy and promised to seek common ground across the political divide, his spokesman, Vic Rodriguez, said.

“To the world: Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions,” Rodriguez quoted Marcos J. as saying.

The election outcome was an astonishing reversal of the army-backed but largely peaceful “People Power” uprising that ousted Marcos’s father in 1986 — a democratic triumph in Southeast Asia where authoritarian regimes flourish.

Marcos Jr, 64, campaigned on a vague national unity theme while avoiding volatile issues in an effort hard-line leftist groups and survivors of the elder Marcos’s dictatorship likened to whitewashing of his father’s crimes. On Tuesday, he appeared overcome with emotions while visiting his father’s grave — which was moved to the national heroes’ cemetery under current President Rodrigo Duterte.

Several of Marcos Jr.s key election rivals have conceded defeat, though the closest challenger, Vice-President Leni Robredo, a human rights lawyer who ran on a promise of badly needed reforms, has only acknowledged his massive lead. The US State Department said the elections and subsequent vote count followed international standards without any major incident.