Bongbong Marcos – a better leader than his father?

Bongbong Marcos, is the son of the disgraced ex-President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, and his wife, Imelda Marcos. But today Bongbong Marcos is the elected the President of the Philippines. Do his hands tell us that he is the chip of the old block? 

Well, genes are genes, and one does tend to inherit a personality, just like one inherits one's physical features. Yet, each one of us is still a little different, as in the case with Bongbong Marcos. It was his bad luck that both his parents were in the eye of the storm, and neither of them impressive characters. The interesting thing about parental genes is that unless the child is plucked out of the environment, there is little chance of the apple falling in another orchard.

Before getting to Bongbong’s Marcus’s hands, a note about his parents hands can tell us whether there is similarity between their hands and the hands of their son, Bongbong. 

Ferdinand Marcos

had a broad, large, palm with short fingers, some of which were pointed and the Apollo (ring) finger is dominant. He had fine lines, long, and there was a very narrow gap between the head and heart lines, mainly because the heartline was low on the hand. His fingers were flexible, maybe bent, particularly the finger of Jupiter (index) finger, and the thumb was long, held close to his hand, supple, and possibly high-set. The bottom phalanges of his fingers were thick while the first phalanges were slim. His headline was weak, in the sense that it is thin and wavy. The Venus mount is narrow, but the Jupiter and Lower Moon and Lower Mars mounts are developed. Here is a hand photo of Ferdinand Marcos.

Imelda Marcos has a fleshy hand, with a fairly narrow palm and short fingers. The Moon mount is prominent, thick bottom phalanges of the fingers, and most of her other mounts are also well developed. The lines on her palm are fuzzy, but long, and there is a narrow gap between the head and heart lines, with a line joining the heartline and headline. There is a gap between the head and heartline, and the headline is high on the palm. Her lines overall are stronger than Ferdinand’s. You can check out Imelda's hand photos.

Ferdinand Marcos hand shows that he is a person with extreme idealism, quick to act and with little empathy or warmth for others. A strong desire for fame, status, and wealth is present in his personality, and he would have been impulsive and very aggressive. Crudeness and selfishness are present as well. People with such hands can be extraordinarily ruthless in the pursuit of their ambitions, especially as there is a complete disregard for others shown in his character. His hand shows a distinct coldness in his personality, and he would likely have had inconsistent and changeable views. There is also the inability to think deeply or take different views into account. It must be his mind-boggling aggression, ambition and the ability to talk his way out of any situation that helped his realise his ambitions.

Imelda's hands show that she is more caring than her husband, but her desire for status symbols and wealth is strong. Her hand shows her to be a volatile, short-tempered person, over-confident, and she too has a difficulty in listening to advice or take different views into account. Crudeness and greed are both shown on her hand. She is the kind of person who will do something if she takes a fancy to it, and there is little self-control. Narrow views and a morbid imagination are qualities that would make her difficult. It is doubtful she got love in her marriage, knowing the kind of husband she had, but she probably had other desires fulfilled. Her hands reveal her to be smarter and more intelligent than Ferdinand, and it is likely she was the brain behind many of his strategies.

Bongbong Marcos has a rectangular palm, and the palm looks hard, harder than that of his mother’s and father’s. The palm is a little narrow, like his mother’s, fingers are broad, short, a little bent, with fleshy bottom phalanges. The tips of the fingers are squarish, except for the Mercury (little) finger which is rounded. The pinky finger also seems a little short, and low-set, and neither of his parents have this feature. His palm is fleshy, with most of the mounts well developed, but particularly Venus and Moon. His fingers are bent and he has a simian line. This line is not as weak as his father’s and nor as fuzzy or disturbed as his mother’s and there is a distinct gap between the simian line and the lifeline. There is no doubt that he is more like his mother, than his father, but still, different from his mother as well.

There is no doubt that Bongbong's hand shows capability, and he is also capable of hard work, even if he can be self-indulgent. Unfortunately, any good thinking can be clouded by with extreme ambition and a desire for material things, status symbols and the comforts and luxuries of life. In this sense he is not too different from his parents. However, once he sets his mind of something, he will go all out for it, there is that determination in his personality. The desire to achieve, and do things, as well as the desire for renown, is very high. Normally, to be ambitious is good, but when it becomes an overriding desire, balancing the personality can become tricky. 

Being of a pragmatic mind-set, unlike that of his parents, and being someone whose head firmly rules, Bongbong probably understands that the only way to overcome his parents' infamous legacy is either to obscurate it by pretending it was lies, and/or try and overcome it by doing good things for his people. He is probably trying both things, so that he can consolidate his power. 

Bongbong does care about the Filipino people, and he is not as cold as his father was. However, there is no idealism in his personality. Ferdinand was idealistic to an extreme, and it was under the guise of idealism that he did many of the cruel things he has been accused of. Ruthlessness that was present in his parents’ characters lurks not too far below the surface of Bongbong's personality, although his hand does not show him to be cruel. His ruthlessness arises more from his pragmatism, narrow views, high ambition, impulsiveness, and the suppression of the heart qualities. All these can work in tandem and would make him take some hard decisions.

While his hands show him to be wily, and Bongbong Marcus has the ability to sweet-talk, he lacks the understanding of people that his father had. This can become a weakness in politics.

Whether Bongbong Marcos will consolidate his power or not, is difficult to say, without seeing his hand in person. What is clear however, is that neither him, nor his parents, have the hands which shows statesmanship, unselfishness, clarity of thinking or leadership qualities that the head of a country should ideally possess. In some countries, the best people rise to the top in politics, and in others, that does not happen. 

Leading a country is one thing, but being remembered as a great leader, another.

Related Reading: The hand reading of Rodrigo Duterte,

You might also be interested in reading about China's Mao Zedong, or Xi Jinping, Hong Kong's John Lee, Brazil's Evo Morales, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, North Korea's Kim Jong-il, or Turkey's Tayyip Erdoğan and many more famous Politicians and Heads of State from different parts of the world.

Photo credit: Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons