VIDEO: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr speaks to 7.30’s Sarah Ferguson

REPORTER (Archival):  President Marcos was finally gone.

REPORTER:  The Marcos family looks set to return with the people's backing.

REPORTER:  Controversy still dogs the Philippines election but there's no doubting who will be the next President.

REPORTER:  The son of the former Philippines dictator, Ferdinand Marcos has secured an unassailable landslide victory.

REPORTER:  Philippines, amongst others, has overlapping territorial claims with China.

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Our sovereignty is sacred. We will not compromise it in any way. We are a sovereign nation.

REPORTER:  Chinese forces have frequently harassed the Philippines coast guard.

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  We will not allow a single square millimetre of our maritime rights to be trampled upon.

The Philippines now finds itself on the frontline against actions that undermine regional peace, erode regional stability and threaten regional success.

REPORTER:  We will have every ASEAN leader here over the course of the next two days. It's very historic.

SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER:  President Marcos, welcome to 7.30.

FERDINAND MARCOS JR, PRESIDENT, PHILIPPINES:  Thank you very much indeed.

SARAH FERGUSON:  In your speech to the Australian Parliament, you use unusually strong language, quoting your own pledge, you said, "I will not allow any attempt by any foreign power to take even one inch of our sovereign territory. We will not yield."

Are you talking about not giving up Philippines territory in the South China Sea?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Absolutely. It is my sworn duty and a sworn duty of the entire government of the republic of the Philippines to defend the constitution of the Philippines and the first article of the constitution is the definition of our territorial waters.

SARAH FERGUSON:  You didn't name China either in your answer or indeed in the speech that you gave to Australia, but it appears to be present in every security move that you make and indeed behind every speech that we've seen you make recently.

How urgent a priority is it to counter the fast-growing military power of China?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Well, we don't see it in that sense. We don't see it as countering the military power of any country whatsoever. It's merely the defence of our territory.

We have territorial conflicts with other countries, Malaysia for example and Vietnam but we've come to an arrangement with them to resolve any such conflicts peacefully.

SARAH FERGUSON:  So I'm right in saying that you don't have that capacity to resolve conflict with China in the same way. Do you actually have direct contact with the Chinese?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  At several levels, at several levels. In fact, in January of last year, when I went to Beijing, and I visited with President Xi Jinping, that is what I proposed. A kind of hotline between us, so that if there is a message that needed to be sent from one president to another, we can be assured that that message will reach them.

And we have sort of established there are several, there are several points of contact at the ministerial level certainly and the sub ministerial level as well.

SARAH FERGUSON:  But do you have a personal line to President Xi?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Not yet, I'm afraid.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Let me just ask you this question, I want to come to what it is that you want from Australia because that's obviously one of the reasons for your visit and your speech as well as ASEAN.

But the former president of the Philippines, Duterte was making overtures to China, very strong ones. Have you decisively moved away from Chinese influence and back into America's orbit?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  I think it's important to make it very, very clear, whatever the Philippines does, the Philippines does because it is in our interests, not because it has been dictated upon us by anyone.

SARAH FERGUSON:  You don't think that your language that you used when you took office, the same language that you used in the Australian Parliament during your visit, is a message to China about where you believe your interests lie?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Well, as I explained it to President Xi again, I said it's my duty. I took an oath to defend the Philippines and anyone who will help me in that regard, I must engage with them.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Was your predecessor getting too close to China?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Well, I think the situation between now and then is quite different and I'm sure he did what was, in his judgement, was the best he did. He was closer to China rather than the United States and maybe because things have heated up a little bit.

But we have a, together with Australia, we have a visiting forces agreement with the United States and Australia. These are the only two countries that we have them with, and we have a mutual defence treaty with the United States which has been there for decades.

SARAH FERGUSON:  How important is it, from your point of view, that Australia has chosen to acquire and build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  That decision is an Australian one.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Do you support it?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  I support AUKUS, I support the Quad and I think that this just represents a stronger front in terms of maintaining the peace, maintaining the peace in the South China Sea.

It is a response really to a differing situation and more dangerous, more risky situation than we had before.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Why is it more dangerous? Just explain?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Because the potential for outright conflict is much higher now than it was before.

And we worry in the Philippines because it could come from not a strategic decision by anyone, saying okay, we're going to war, but just by making some servicemen making a mistake or some action that's misunderstood.

And that's why the ongoing attempt is always to try and lower the temperature, ease up on the rhetoric and communicate and just continue to communicate.

SARAH FERGUSON:  That's why you need the phone, the same phone that Khrushchev and Kennedy had, right?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  That's right. Yes.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Let me try and understand what you might want, what you might want from Australia. Would you expect the Australian Navy to come to the defence of Philippines forces in the event of conflicts with China over disputed territory in the South China Sea?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  I suppose if we are in a joint exercise or in a joint operation, then perhaps that would involve Australia in that but we do not have any formal agreement or treaty in that regard as we do with the United States.

SARAH FERGUSON:  How would you explain to Australians, to Australian servicemen or women why they should potentially risk their lives in the aid of Philippines under pressure from China? Why do we belong there?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Let me take us back to the Second World War, where the defence of Corregidor and Batam which were the outposts that held out longest, but because of that, it delayed the invasion of Australia to the point that the Japanese never invaded Australia.

And that, if we can stop it at an early stage, nip it at the bud as it were, then there's no need for it to grow into other areas, other regions.

And hopefully if we can at best, as I said, keep the peace in the South China Sea, that will be a great advantage to Australia, because the peace is maintained.

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  In relation to the former president, it's clear from the outside that there's been some breakdown in the relationship. Do you intend now to invite the ICC to the Philippines to conduct its investigation more fully into former president Duterte's murderous war on drugs?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  No. That would be a political move and what we are, we do not play politics with jurisdiction and sovereignty.

And the position that we've taken is that we do not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC. We view it as a threat to sovereignty, simply because the ICC was formed to conduct, to provide justice to areas where there is no, there is no judiciary. Where there is no court system, where there is no police, where there is no peace and order and that's not the Philippines.

And therefore, I don't think that their investigations or their concerns apply to the Philippines.

SARAH FERGUSON:  If it's not the ICC, then who provides justice for the many thousands, I think the number is something like 12,000 to 30,000 people who were killed in former president Duterte's war on drugs. How do they get justice?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  I think we, in the Philippines, as I said, have a functioning police force. We have a functioning judiciary, and it is their responsibility to take care of that.

We have made a great deal of progress in that regard where many policemen have already been removed from service because they've been found to be liable, cases have been filed. Many are already in jail.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Do you think it adds up to justice for those people who lost their lives?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  What we try to do is to now go back to the families of those and see but perhaps, see what we can do to make things right for them.

As long as it can be shown, of course, that they were not actually involved in the drug trade.

As I said very early on, we are not interested in a small-time addict for example. An addict, you take them to the hospital, you take them to rehab.

SARAH FERGUSON:  You don't shoot them?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  We don't. We have taken enforcement as far as we can, and it only gets you so far.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Your father was overthrown by a people's revolution, and you are his only son. How do you resist the impulse to authoritarianism?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  I have no impulses to authoritarianism whatsoever. We have a good system going. I think we've learnt to, we have a constitution that we have, that we have gone by for the last 36 years now.

We are making, hoping to make some changes to it but, no, I have not felt any tug or temptation to make it a more authoritarian system.

SARAH FERGUSON:  You've been a politician for a very long time, you have a very clear understanding of your country's history, and you obviously revere your father. I've seen you talk about him.

Do you also understand the costs of his authoritarian rule to people in the Philippines?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Well, it was a very different sort of authoritarian rule. I think when people think of authoritarian rule, it was non-participatory.

Whereas I think the version that my father tried to promote and actually practised was very much still with the participation of all stakeholders that were involved. It was just a peace and order situation that really dictated the necessity for the declaration of martial law.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Let me just understand, make sure that we are talking about the same thing. I think Amnesty records during that period 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 tortured, 3,200 people killed are the numbers and your father in an interview admitted that over 50,000 were detained.

I just want to ask you again; do you accept that there was a human cost to that rule?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Oh, yes. There always is. It was war and with war the death and destruction is inevitable but this is a war not declared by the government of the Philippines.

These wars were declared on the government of the Philippines. Both of them, one was to divide the country and the other one was to remove the present political system by arms struggle.

SARAH FERGUSON:  There is one series of questions that comes up in relation to your father's time which is, which is, of course, the question of corruption which became wholly associated with the Philippines for a long period of time. I think contemporary court judgements acknowledge the atrocities that were committed but also the plunder of the country's resources.

Why wouldn't you want all of that money back in the hands of the Filipino people?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Well, with the narrative...

SARAH FERGUSON:  May I just ask you why that is funny?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Why that?

SARAH FERGUSON:  Why that is funny. I'm asking you a question about the plundering of large sums of money from the Filipino people...

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  No. I'm thinking that that maintains, that idea maintains because I take exception to many many of the assertions that have been made.

And I think we have been, we have since the cases were filed, the government fell. Cases were filed against me, my family, the estate etc and up to now we have, the assertions that were made, we have been shown to be untrue.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Quite a lot of money, I think $5 billion was already recovered. I guess the quetion is ...

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Again, again, again...

SARAH FERGUSON:  Do you not want to see all the money that was taken returned to the people?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Again, we have signed, this family has signed a quitclaims, we have signed many quitclaims. Any money that you find is yours and finished and everything was taken from us.

We went, we were taken to Hawaii. Everything. Everything was taken from us with nothing, we have nothing left.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Not the view of the presidential commission.

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  I'm sorry?

SARAH FERGUSON:  Not the view of the presidential commission. This is my final question on this topic.

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Which presidential commission?

SARAH FERGUSON:  In the Philippines? Their view is there is a large amount of money outstanding.

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  I think that having seen the facts, as they have been slowly revealed, further true investigation, not propaganda, but actual true investigation, the court cases and investigations by all kinds of NGOs, different agencies, that has changed and people can see that it was propaganda.

SARAH FERGUSON:  I suppose the question is other countries in the region, including Australia, want to know that the Philippines and you in particular as a Marcos have come to terms with your family's history?

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  There was a time when the issue was Marcos. That's not the case anymore and that's why I think the best proof of that is my election.

SARAH FERGUSON:  President Marcos, thank you very much indeed for speaking to 7.30.

FERDINAND MARCOS JR:  Thank you.