Politician Bongbong Marcos spotted wearing a IWC

Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr. was photographed wearing an IWC Portofino IW391012 during his run for the Philippine presidency, a campaign that ultimately ended in his election as the country's 17th president in 2022. The sighting places a quietly expensive Swiss dress watch at the wrist of one of Southeast Asia's most scrutinised political figures, and the choice of reference is worth examining on its own terms.

The IWC Portofino IW391012 is part of IWC's Portofino collection, a family of dress watches rooted in a 1984 design commissioned by a Portofino boutique owner who wanted something elegant enough for the Italian Riviera. This specific reference runs on IWC's calibre 52010, a movement from the in-house 52000 family introduced in 2012. It offers an impressive 168-hour — seven-day — power reserve, beats at 28,800 vph, and is visible through a display caseback. The case measures 45mm in stainless steel, with a clean white dial, applied hour markers, and a date aperture at 3 o'clock. The combination of a large case with a minimalist dial gives it a presence that reads as confident rather than showy.

Within the IWC collector community, the Portofino occupies a specific niche. It is not the brand's most technically celebrated piece — that honour generally falls to the Pilot's watches or the perpetual calendar Grande Complication variants — but it represents IWC's most coherent argument for classical dress-watch credibility. The 52000 calibre upgrade was a meaningful one, moving the collection away from ébauche-based movements and giving collectors a genuine in-house story to tell.

Marcos comes from a family whose relationship with conspicuous wealth is extensively documented. Against that backdrop, the Portofino IW391012 reads as a calibrated choice — Swiss, serious, and expensive without being obviously extravagant. For a politician cultivating a reformist image while carrying a complicated dynastic legacy, the understated IWC signals aspiration to a kind of technocratic normalcy.

At retail, the Portofino IW391012 listed in the mid-to-upper tier of IWC's core collection. On the secondary market, demand for larger Portofino references has been stable without strong appreciation pressure, making it a wearable rather than speculative acquisition — which, in its own way, suits the political optics perfectly.