Celebrations for newly-inaugurated Philippine President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. have kept going in Southern California. Hundreds of people lately headed to the region to greet the president’s nephew, Ilocos Norte Governor Matthew Manotoc.

“BBM’s victory is our victory and the victory of the Philippines, and we will ensure that,” Manotoc proclaimed. Loyalists traveled from as far away as Las Vegas, while others had just returned from a trip to the Philippines to witness Marcos’ official launch. They all assembled in Cerritos to join the governor and other Marcos supporters. Despite recently testing positive for COVID-19, they are hopeful about the president’s first two weeks in office.

“I went to the inauguration and birthday party of our former First Lady at Malacañang, I had a really great time,” UniTeam coordinator Chona Galvez said. “We are just so happy for him. Everybody is so happy. He seems to be ahead of doing a great job.”

Ilocanos who went to support Manotoc are even more hopeful about their home province. The governor, who is 33 years old, guaranteed them that Ilocos is on the losing end of an economic boom.

“One of my hopeful purposes to be here [in Southern California] to be honest is to invite you back to Ilocos Norte. I know many of you visit but I do believe our province poses many opportunities and those I’d like to discuss tonight, in terms of agriculture and tourism, our twin powerhouse industry, but also many other industries such as services, even responsible mining, BPO’s. We would like to explore and I’m sure over these next six years of the BBM presidency, many of these plans and ambitions will be realized,” Manotoc stated in the comment.

Although Fil-Ams celebrated their evening with the governor, they are expecting that the president will pay them a personal visit in the coming years.