The son and namesake of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was sworn in as President of the Philippines on Thursday, completing a stunning comeback for one of Asia’s most famous political dynasties, 36 years after it was ousted in a popular uprising.

Marcos Jr scored a rare landslide victory in last month’s election, helped by what his critics see as a decades-long effort to alter public perceptions of a family that lived lavishly at the helm of one of the world’s most notorious kleptocracies.

In a speech that echoed his campaign slogans of unity, Marcos Jr, better known as “Bongbong”, vowed to take the country far on his watch with policies benefiting everyone, and thanked the public for delivering what he called “the biggest electoral mandate in the history of Philippine democracy”.

“You will not be disappointed, so do not be afraid,” he said at his inauguration ceremony, surrounded by his immediate family and with his sister Imee, a senator, and 92-year-old mother Imelda, a former four-time congresswoman, seated close by. Marcos Jr, 64, also praised his late father’s rule but said his presidency was not about the past, but a better future.

“I once knew a man who saw what little had been achieved since independence ... but he got it done sometimes with the needed support, sometimes without,” he said.

“So will it be with his son? You will get no excuses from me.” He added: “No looking back in anger or nostalgia.”

The elder Ferdinand Marcos ruled the Philippines from 1965 for two decades, almost half of it under martial law, helping him to extend his grip on power until his overthrow and his family’s retreat into exile during a 1986 “people power” revolution.

Thousands of Marcos opponents were jailed and killed during his rule, and the family name became synonymous with cronyism, extravagance and the disappearance of billions from state coffers.