Bongbong and Imee
Antagonist-in-chief. This is what Randy David calls Imee Marcos. All because of her audacity in co-producing Maid in Malacanang.
The Marcos family dynamic has been laid bare for all to see. Unlike the Aquino’s, the Marcos’ are the what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of family. We have all been witness to the Iron Butterfly Show. Imelda has always had a flair for the dramatic. She is a classic case of a woman who grew up with daddy and mommy issues.
Her father was weak. She lost her mother at an early age. Their family became impoverished and had to go back to Tacloban. It was Imelda who had the audacity to make her branch of the family become dominant among the Romualdez’s again.
Imee is the eldest of Apo Lakay supposedly. The urban legend that her true father is Arsenio Lacson has never been debunked. Genetics is certainly working against her as she is the only Marcos who’s not chinky-eyed unlike Bongbong and Irene.
Imee has always been spunky and outspoken even in her teens when she was made the head of Kabataang Barangay. If not for her and the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, we wouldn’t have the classic Filipino films produced during her time such as the landmark Oro, Plata, Mata.
Even in her personal life, she has always been controversial. She ran off with Tommy Manotoc. The alleged “kidnapping” of Manotoc was the story of the day until its resolution. Despite Imee’s quirks, all of her children are accomplished in their respective fields and she has a very good relationship with them unlike her case with her mother.
Bongbong has always been neither here nor there. We have seen how Marcos was worried about how his progeny would turn out given his penchant for being a slacker when he was a student. English boarding school still didn’t bring out the best in him and he only graduated with a special diploma from Oxford.
Irene, the youngest, has always been the quiet one. She was the first to get married. She had to live a life in exile with her family. The Marcos’ had to lie low when they came back because they were pariahs. It was at this point that they knew who their true friends were. Those who weren’t ashamed to be seen in public with them and commiserated with them at their lowest point.
The opposition has made much of Imee’s moves during the campaign. It is an open secret that she doesn’t get along well enough with her sister in-law. The same is true with Imelda.
This was evident again in the briefing held in Bangued, after the earthquake where Imee was very outspoken about the comment made by the commanding general of Nolcom about everything having to be coordinated with them for the use of the AFP’s resources.
Imee gave her brother a verbal shellacking and didn’t stop with him. She also gave her cousin, the Speaker of the House, the same treatment. Opposition pundits had a field day and no less than Inday Espina Varona came to the defense of the President.
Even Kris Aquino can’t hold a candle to Imee. While Kris has been outspoken as well, she isn’t perceived to be as sincere as Imee. She’s not as “bakla” as Imee is in showbiz parlance.
Maid in Malacanang is not a propaganda movie. It is nothing more than a collaboration between Imee and Daryl Yap whose mindset is on the same wavelength was Imee’s. This is why their satire series during the campaign was well-received by the public. This is Imee channeling her creative side.
Imee, in contrast, is hopelessly stuck in the taunting mode of a resentful victim of political misfortune—even long after she has recovered her place on the political stage. Irony befits her because she thinks herself too bright to believe there is anything permanent about status in a highly contingent world. She cannot rest. But now that a member of the family is back in Malacañang, in the highest seat of power, the cynical and jeering tone she has mastered sounds misplaced and anachronistic.
What is there to gain, for instance, in portraying the late President Cory Aquino, whose husband Ninoy was brazenly murdered by soldiers escorting him at the international airport while Marcos Sr. was president, as a shallow and vengeful woman in a movie that Imee herself collaborated in as creative producer? The lady is gone, and, in the eyes of many, she is now in a place where mortals can no longer touch her.
What higher purpose is served in poking fun at the Catholic nuns, who gave Cory refuge at the start of the people power uprising at Edsa in 1986, and depicting them as a bunch of mahjong-playing gossipmongers? Is this a way of criticizing hypocrisy in the institutional Church? If the intent is to catalyze a reevaluation of the role of the Church in society, targeting a monastic order of religious women for ridicule achieves nothing of the sort. Nuns are the least powerful elements within the institutional Church.
David and his cohorts and the opposition continue to be hypocrites because they can’t take as good as they give when it comes to satire. The political playing field has changed a lot since 1986. Technology has come to it as well with the advent of socia media.
Imee isn’t stupid enough to think that she still needs to present their case to the Filipino people. Bongbong Marcos is President. The judgment of the Filipino people can’t be clearer than this.
Despite his being an academic, David can’t seem to see through what is wrong with Gen Z and the millennials, whom they were counting on to propel them to victory. The truth is both generations are bereft of critical thinking. Despite information being at their fingertips, they prefer the instant gratification of asking questions and getting answers instead of digging on their own through research and formulating their own opinion.
Technology is a double-edged sword. Used properly it can provide a wealth of knowledge to the individual but it also breeds laziness and stupidity because of self-gratification and entitlement.
Notice how Imee provoked the audience further by indulging Ella Cruz in a Q&A about history being chismis. But it is a reality that the victors get the spoils and also get to write history. Just look at the tales of thievery at the PCGG since 1986 and how the Aquino’s were depicted in textbooks used in public schools.
The opposition’s lack of foresight and planning led to their defeat. They were also complacent because of their elitist nature. In contrast, you have politicians like Imee who has her hand on the public’s pulse. Even if she’s a senior citizen, the Manang doesn’t let her age get in the way of her adapting to change because she knows very well that it is constant so she continues to evolve.
The opposition mascot, Leni Robredo, is also in the position to be like Imee but she fails miserably because the public perceives her to be a fake and trying too hard. Between Robredo and Imee, it is the former who is likey to suffer from more deep-seated psychological dysfunction. Imee has been consistently Imee from ever since before up to the present.
Every one of us suffers from one form of dysfunction or another. It’s all part of our life on this earth. What’s to be questioned is how we deal with these issues. It’s obvious that the opposition has a much harder time than their political enemies who have better coping mechanisms because they’re grounded in realities and not their made-up ecosystems.
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