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Jean Mangaluz - Philstar.com
December 11, 2025 | 11:12am
In this photo uploaded on Facebook on Dec. 10, 2025, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. leads the first-ever Battalion Commander’s Symposium for External Security Operations, attended by 161 battalion commanders from the ISAFP and the Philippine Army.
Presidential Communications Office via Facebook
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. admitted that he initially did not want to enter politics when he was young.
In his podcast episode released on Thursday, December 11, Marcos was interviewed by editors from student publications and the topic was his personal motivations and family history.
Marcos admitted to the student editors that if he had not been born into his family, politics would not have been on the list for him.
“If I wasn’t born in my family, you know what, I'll tell you something, that all my – when I was young, I really did not want to enter politics,” Marcos said.
The president explained that he saw the heavy work that his parents were doing and did not want to do it.
As the only son, Marcos said that his parents were dismayed that he did not want to enter politics.
Despite this, Marcos entered politics as the vice governor of Ilocos Norte in 1980, during his father’s Martial Law rule.
Marcos became governor in 1983 until his family was ousted during the 1986 People Power Revolution, after the Martial Law rule proved to have an extensive record of human rights abuses and corruption.
The Marcos family would eventually return, with Bongbong eventually returning to the Palace and his sister securing a seat at the Senate. Marcos made no mention of his estranged sister in the interview, focusing on his parents.
With this, Marcos still counted himself lucky, saying that he would not have wanted to have been born to another family.
“Parang ang tingin ko sa sarili ko, ako na ang pinakasuwerteng tao na kilala ko. Wala na akong kilala na tao na masuwerte pa sa akin dahil ganyan ang naging ama ko, ganyan ang naging mother ko, ganyan ang naging experience ko,” Marcos said.
(I see myself as the luckiest person I know. I do not know anyone else who is luckier than me because my father and mother were the way they are. That was my experience.)
