to me his photos in wikipedia look authentically East Asian (the article mentions that he had Asian ancestry as well as local one). Did people see him as sufficiently Filipino when they voted for him in the beginning of his career? Were they happy enough with an Asian face? Did they just lack TVs?
Wikipedia notes: Multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands.
Given that, it may be that his appearance was not that controversial.
marcos’ ethnicity was pure ilocano, a group found in the northern portion of luzon island with a distinct language from filipinos around the capital manila. undoubtedly they too have a mix of chinese, spanish, even anglo-saxon but they are among the most “pure” indo-malay ethnics in the philippines.
regarding marcos himself, yes, he does look like park chung hee (his dictatorial contemporary in south korea.) but that’s just the general “strike” in his features. park is east asian, marcos is malay.
filipinos had tv long before but just like in the nixon-kennedy tussle, most of them them preferred the radio and the dailies.