The last time the Philippines hosted the FIBA Basketball World Cup – then known as the FIBA World Championship – was in 1978, when the current president’s father and namesake, the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, was still in power. At that point, the Philippines had been under martial law for over six years.
The elder Marcos then tossed the ball during the opening game – an event Marcos Jr. himself witnessed. “I’m happy that I will be there for the time that it will… the FIBA events will return… World Cup now, will return to the Philippines. So, it would be an honor for me to reenact perhaps, reenact what my father did in 1978,” the president said in late April 2023, when members of the FIBA Central Board and delegates from the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas visited Malacañang Palace.
Reenacting or replicating photo-ops and events by his father and namesake has been a recurring event under Marcos Jr. The FIBA Basketball World Cup is jointly hosted by the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia, with most of the games in the Philippine to held in the Mall of Asia Arena and the Araneta Coliseum. Games begin on August 25 and end on September 10.