The opposition has been in nostalgia mode since last year. Nostalgia about their success in ousting Marcos in 1986. Even if they nothing to do with the efforts of Enrile and the RAM, the opposition took credit for Marcos’ ouster. The truth was three years after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino set into play the conspiracy to oust Marcos, they were no closer to doing so.
Marcos was seriously ill in August 1983 with a rejected kidney during his first transplant but the second one was a success. Marcos slowly recovered but it was evident from his appearance that he had not regained his usual vigor.
The Kingmaker is free to watch on Vimeo in an effort to turn public opinion against the Marcos’. So I did yesterday in order to find out what it was all about.
The star of the film is none other than The Iron Butterfly. Imeldific. Imelda Romualdez Marcos. Fomer First Lady, Metro Manila Governor and Minister of Human Settlements. The Mother of Filipinos.
Madame is very colorful, to say the least. Super Ma’am as she was also referred to by those in her inner circle was known to get only about four hours of sleep a day. She held court at the Palace and had on call her favorite caterer, Glenda Barretto of Via Mare and her favorite stylist Ronnie Laing. Madame made decisions on impulse and two were always ready to stage events, both formal and informal, on the fly, for their number one client.
It was always about the true, the good and beautiful when it came to Imeldific. In the Untold Story of Imelda Marcos, Carmen Pedrosa writes about Madame’s nervous breakdown after Marcos was elected President. Apparently the pressure of being his wife and eventually First Lady, took its toll on the Rose of Tacloban who had never been exposed to that kind of lifestyle. Pedrosa surmised that this was the reason why the matriarch, Dona Josefa, preferred Carmen Ortega, over her. Ortega was Marcos’ common-law wife with whom he had four children even before he met Imelda.
But Apo Lakay knew that it was Imelda who would be a major asset in his political arsenal as he was an Ilocano and she, Waray. It was the perfect marriage made in political heaven.
Imelda and her siblings were mistreated by her half-siblings from her father’s first wife. She and her mother were made to live at the garage of their ancestral house on General Solano St., which was a stone’s throw away from Malacanan.
Her father Vicente, who was a lawyer like his two brothers, Norberto and Miguel, was not as intellectually-gifted nor did he possess the acumen to make it big in private practice or politics. Vicente became mired in debt and the house on General Solano had to be sold. Their greatly reduced finances necessitated the move back to Tacloban and so they did. It was in Tacloban that Imelda finished high school.
Imelda was sent to Manila for college. Her father still could not pay for her tuition in full so she was put under the care of her cousin Daniel, who was then the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Imelda enrolled at the Philippine Women’s University where she took up Music. She was fond of singing but did not have the inherent talent to make is as a coloratura soprano. She was so hard-up that she took a job as a Saleslady as an Escolta department store. It was only later that Norberto found employment for her at the Central Bank of the Philippines under Miguel Cuaderno.
She joined the Miss Manila contest and controversy hounded her because while she initially lost, she appealed to then Manila Mayor Arsenio Lacson who proceeded to crown her Muse of Manila. There is that persistent urban legend that the reason why Marcos’ courtship of her was only eleven days was because she was already pregnant with Lacson’s child. This would mean that Maria Imelda Josefa, her eldest child, was not fathered by Ferdinand but by the acerbic Manila Mayor who had been mentioned as a potential President.
Unfortunately, Lacson died of a heart attack at the Hotel Filipinas. He was closeted in the room supposedly with movie star Charito Solis, who never got married after the incident.
Imelda lost her mother when she was eight years old to pneumonia after giving birth to her sixth child by Vicente. In the documentary, Madame describes Marcos as both a mother and a husband. This childhood trauma could be the cause of her acquisitive nature. Imelda is quirky because she has this penchant for the most expensive material possessions but is also loose with money as she constantly has a stash ready in her handbag to give out to those who need it.
“The poor always look for a star in the dark of the night.”
The Kingmaker is meant to showcase Imelda’s excesses to the public but to the average Filipino, she is what she described herself to be in the quote above. It is no different from what was expressed in The Crown by Queen Mary. The royalty gives the ordinary people something to look up to who gives them hope. It is the duty of the sovereign.
During her time, she built the Philippine Heart Center for Asia, the Lung Center of the Philippines, the National Kidney Center and the Philippine Children’s Medical Center. She is seen expressing extreme disappointment at the present state of the PCMC. She is directed to the Cancer Ward and immediately whispers to her aide for cash to be given her and starts doling out P1,000 bills to each patient in the ward. “Pambili ng candy.”
Super Ma’am’s defense against opposition allegations of her edifice complex and profligacy is she is the mother of the Filipino people. The projects were for the people. Think about it. If Marcos had not married Imelda, would there be a Cultural Center of the Philippines? A PICC? The Coconut Palace, Folk Arts Theater and the lamented Film Center? Would there have been an Experimental Cinema of the Philippines? The National Artist Awards? The BLISS Housing Projects in the NCR? The University of Life? The National Arts Center? It can be said that she single-handedly supported the arts and culture scene in the country during her time as First Lady.
The Kingmaker’s supporting cast includes Andy Bautista, Etta Rosales, Pete Lacaba and no less than Noynoy Aquino himself nailing Imelda to the cross with a litany of her sins against the Filipino people.
The backdrop of the documentary in the second half focuses on the exotic animals from Africa which were imported and brought to Calauit Island after residents were resettled. Filmmaker Laura Greenfield focuses on the residents who have come back to Calauit and are having difficulty co-existing with the animals because they eat their crops as a symbol of Imelda’s excesses.
The animals themselves have been neglected as the government has not allocated any budget for their upkeep. They have inbred which is not good for their gene pool as mutations will eventually result in genetic anomalies and cause their extinction. Greenfield achieves her goal in showing that viewers that once Imelda set her mind to it, nothing was impossible. A briefcase full of money and a personal call by the President to his Kenyan counterpart was what it took to fulfill Imelda’s wish. Greenfield wants to show Filipinos the consequences of Imeldfic’s folly.
The last thirty minutes of the film delves into the 2016 election. At the beginning, Andy Bautista was the Chair of the PCGG. He is now the Chair of COMELEC, the poll body in charge of elections. The issue of historical revisionism is played out along with the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos’. Leni Robredo makes her appearance as the Vice-Presidential candidate, the giant slayer in the mold of Cory who would later on “defeat” the son of the dictator.
In the above interview, Andy Bautista and Lauren Greenfield are lying through the skin of their teeth in some respects. No mention is made of Imelda’s acquittal on RICO charges in New York under then US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Rudolph Giuliani. That is material because her acquittal means that no charges of a similar nature can be filed against her again under the principle of double-jeopardy.
Bautista makes it appear that the reason why he is residing in the US is he is a victim of political persecution. He makes no mention that it was his wife who filed charges against him because of what she found to be payoffs from the time when he was the PCGG head up to when he was the Comelec Chair. Why the Philippine government has not requested for his extradition since his self-imposed exile only Justice Secretary Menardo Guevara can answer.
Greenfield and Bautista go to the extreme of giving the public the impression that the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani was a quid pro quo between himself and the Marcos’. Duterte made it clear during the campaign and if and when he wins, he will allow Marcos’ burial. It was made an election issue and the public still voted for him.
This is where the documentary fails and turns into a propaganda piece. Greenfield showcases the enduring poverty in the country but does not stop to think that the same goes to show how nothing has changed even after the ouster of Marcos. Etta Rosales makes a clear statement about how the elitist politics post-Marcos have not done anything for the greater majority of the Filipino people.
Imelda has not shunned interviews ever since she came back to the country. She has gone up against the best of them including the acerbic Winnie Monsod and has come out triumphant even if with her idiosyncrasies showing through.
The opposition continues to wonder why the Marcos’ remain popular despite everything they have done to destroy their image in the eyes of the Filipino people. What they do not realize is it is their failure to deliver on their promised reforms which have made the Marcos’ acceptable because they do not have the monopoly of corruption in public office but they have left behind tangible proof of their accomplishments compared to what the opposition has as theirs during their thirty years in power.
Perception is real and the truth is not.
The Iron Butterfly is 92 years old. She has not had an easy life despite what most people think. As a child growing up in San Miguel, Manila near Malacanan Palace, I was a witness to the comings and goings of the Marcos’. I have seen them at their peak.
But there was this one afternoon while I was driving through F. Blumentritt in San Juan that I saw a BMW 740il parked by the curbside. A burly man clad in a polo barong was standing by the front passenger side of the vehicle while the rear door’s window was open. You could see through the tinted windows that it was Imelda, buying bananas from a sidewalk vendor with only a driver and bodyguard in tow. No motorcade. No aides. The vehicle’s plate number was IMR-777. During her time all of the vehicles she used bore the same plate number, IRM-777. She cannot even get the LTO to issue her the plate number she prefers for her vehicle.
Imeldific has said that the Presidency is destiny. What would overshadow the win of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on May 9, 2022 is the story of how the Rose of Tacloban manages a triumphant comeback to Malacanan, the palace she had to leave in haste in 1986, packing diamonds in diapers. She has come a long way from the garage of the house at General Solano St.
It would be safe to say that she believes that her greatest comeback is also destiny.
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