John Jonas (host) provides an update on the Philippine elections (episode 149 of his Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast). He states that Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. won the presidency (inauguration June 30, term to 2028), Sara Duterte will be vice president, and Marcos has begun meeting foreign dignitaries. Jonas discusses local emotions about the Marcos return, notes no expected changes to working with Online Filipino Specialists (OFS), and advises caution when discussing politics with OFS (politics can be divisive).
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Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS Online Filipino Specialists. This is episode 149, an update on the election. So voting brings a lot of emotion. It does it everywhere. During the last election cycle, my wife and I had some different views and we had some heated discussions. Nothing, nothing ever got out of control. But it was definitely different than our normal. We ended up coming really close and being really, really having really similar views in the end. But that's not usually normal. Election politics usually causes a lot of divisiveness and the Philippines is no different. So by the time you, you listen to this Bongbong Marcos or Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Is his actual name. They call him Bongbong Marcos. He will be the president of the Philippines. The inauguration happens on June 30. The Philippines Congress has, I mean, it took a while, but they finally declared him as the. As the winner of the election and he will be the next president. The daughter of Rodrigo Duterte, who is the current president, is going to be the vice president. Her name is Sarah. So that's an interesting continuation of people in politics in the Philippines. The, the presidential term lasts for six years. There's no re election and so they're expected to serve until 2028. They've already started meeting with like, foreign dignitaries. They met with the United States Secretary of Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on June 9th. They've met with dignitaries from Spain and Morocco and Germany. So Bongmo Marcos is. Is ready to take. Take control of the Philippines. Ready to take control of the government of the Philippines. Inauguration day will be June 30th. Like I said, and so far it's not a holiday. Police will be on high alert from protests and whatever else that day. There's a lot of people that aren't excited about this, although he did win with a pretty big victory. And despite winning by a landslide, people still remember what his, what Bong Bong's father did when he was in power, both the good and the bad. And so the idea that the Marcoses are back in power brings up a lot of emotions there. So far, they haven't said anything that would indicate that the way that you work with your ofs will be affected. Nothing like that has happened and we don't expect it to happen. We don't expect any changes with how you work with people in the Philippines, how you pay them, how you find them, any of that. It should all just continue to work kind of around the world. This is common that there are three things that we don't discuss. Religion, politics, and football. Soccer. At least when I was in Brazil, that was what they always said. We don't talk about religion, politics, and soccer. And that's pretty common because those three things are pretty dang heated. And in this case, it's no different. Your OFS may or may not want to talk about it, so you're welcome to try. I've talked about it with some people on my team and have had both positive and negative responses. So it's. It'll be an interesting time with this. With this. With Marcos in power.
