MANILA: Time magazine has featured Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in its list of the 100 most influential people of 2024, which includes other heads of state, celebrities, scientists and tycoons.

First published in 1999, the annual list recognizes people from various fields for making an impact, breaking records or rules. Entrants are featured for making change — regardless of the consequences of their actions.

Marcos, 66, the son and namesake of the late Philippine dictator, won a landslide victory in the 2022 elections. He campaigned on the issue of national unity and portrayed himself as the candidate for change, promising happiness to 110 million Filipinos, weary of pandemic hardships and years of political polarization under his immediate predecessor Rodrigo Duterte.

The magazine recognized his efforts to rehabilitate and “whitewash” the name of his father and also highlighted his other achievements in office.

“He brought technocrats back into government, steadied the post-pandemic economy, and elevated the Philippines on the world stage,” Time’s news correspondent Charlie Campbell wrote.

“Many problems persist, including extrajudicial killings and journalists routinely attacked. But by trying to repair his family name, Bongbong may reshape his country too.”

The article also recognized Marcos for standing against Beijing’s claims in the disputed South China Sea, where Chinese ships have been regularly entering the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Standing steadfast against Chinese aggression has also gained him praise at home.

“His policy on the West Philippine Sea of standing up against China is good,” said Raymond Zabala, a lawyer, who was “optimistic and skeptical at the same time” about Marcos’ inclusion in Time’s list, owing to unanswered issues about his family’s ill-gotten wealth and abuses during his father’s rule.

“Given his family’s background and some of the issues during the election campaign, I can’t help but feel critical.”

While appearing on Time’s list is often seen as an honor, Filipinos said they did not see how their country was improving its reputation, although they were observing fewer human rights violations compared with the previous Duterte administration and its “war on drugs,” which according to rights groups has led to the deaths of over 12,000 people.

“The Philippines will be reverting back to its usual image of a corrupt nation, probably minus the extrajudicial killings,” said Crystal Arcega, a law student.

Writer Pam Musni told Arab News she felt the perception of Marcos’ administration was the same as that of his predecessor’s, although “probably less bloodthirsty” and “more emboldened” against China.

“I understand why he was included in the list, with ‘influential’ not necessarily being a good or bad thing,” she said.

“It is especially frustrating that he does not make any significant strides towards the threat of climate change, and that he has expressed support for Israel, a country that has been killing many innocent lives in Palestine.”

A recent Pulse Asia survey showed Marcos’ performance ratings fell from 68 percent in December 2023 to 55 percent in March.

“I’m still waiting to hear how he plans to assert our sovereignty, since that is always a balancing act with the US,” said sustainable development practitioner J.K. Asturias.

Initially enthusiastic about Marcos’ $160 billion infrastructure plans under his Build Better More program, he has been increasingly critical over lack of support for alternative modes of transportation.

“In recent times I’ve been especially disappointed with how they are banning light electric vehicles even though there is a law that says the government should be incentivizing their adoption. I also feel he does a lot of greenwashing, pretending he’s pro-environment even though he pushes for mining,” Asturias said.

For him, the impression that Time’s list would create was one of the Filipinos’ tendency to forget.

“Many people will most likely see the Philippines as a nation that forgets too soon and forgives too much,” he said. “If they don’t think that already.”

Other Filipinos featured by Time have included Duterte and his vocal critic and former senator Leila de Lima in 2017.

Journalist Maria Ressa was recognized by Time in 2019 — two years before becoming a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The late former President Corazon Aquino, a central figure in the ousting of Marcos’ father in the bloodless 1986 People Power Revolution, was Time’s Woman of the Year in 1987.

LONDON: The UK’s House of Lords rejected the government’s plan to send migrants to Rwanda for asylum processing in a vote on Wednesday after it approved two amendments to the legislation.

The upper chamber of Parliament voted in favor of a proposal to exempt Afghans who worked with UK military personnel from being deported to the East African country, and of another that would see a committee established to monitor safety in Rwanda.

The bill will return to the House of Commons early next week, where MPs have previously refused to back amendments made to it by the Lords. 

The government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has made the Rwanda scheme a core part of his pledge to lower illegal migration across the English Channel before the next general election, says the bill in its current form is “the right way forward.”

However, a previous version of the scheme was rejected by the UK Supreme Court in 2023 as unlawful. 

The plan has also drawn cross-party criticism for its expense, worries about its effectiveness, the government’s inability to implement it and for the way it treats people in need of asylum, including former Afghan soldiers, translators and their families, many of whom risked their lives to assist the UK during operations in Afghanistan.

Numerous Afghans have been identified as having been threatened with deportation to Rwanda for entering the UK illegally, with many claiming safe legal routes either don’t work in practice or don’t exist.

The Independent highlighted the cases of a former Afghan Air Force pilot hailed as a “patriot” by former colleagues, who crossed the Channel in a small boat, and of two former Afghan special forces soldiers belonging to units known as “Triples” run by the British Army, who were wrongly denied assistance by the UK Ministry of Defence.

Along with reporting by Lighthouse Reports and Sky News, hundreds of other former Triples soldiers have also been identified hiding in Pakistan, awaiting an MoD review after many were refused entry to the UK.

The Lords amendment on protections from deportation for former Afghan military personnel was proposed by a former UK defense secretary, Lord Browne of Ladyton, and supported by two former chiefs of the UK’s defense staff.

Earlier on Wednesday Home Office minister Michael Tomlinson said peers should reject the amendments to “send a clear signal that if you come to the UK illegally, you will not be able to stay.”

But Lord Browne told the Lords: “Now is the time to give these people the sanctuary their bravery has earned.”

He added the government needed to be reminded of “the political consequences of their failure not to give either an assurance that is bankable or to accept this amendment. Because there is little, if any, support in your lordships’ House for their failure to do this and there (is) certainly no majority support in the country to treat these brave people this way.”

Lord Coaker, shadow home affairs spokesperson in the Lords, added: “Why on earth would the government oppose that particular amendment? It’s one of those things that is completely unbelievable.”

On Wednesday, Conservative MP Sir Robert Buckland told the Commons: “There is still a class of people who have served this country, who have been brave and have exposed themselves to danger, who have not yet been dealt with.

“Many of them are in Pakistan, and I think that it would have been helpful to have perhaps seen an amendment in lieu to deal with that point.”