The Beauty of Shopping

"Funny, I never shopped. Even my jewelry - not a piece of jewelry I bought for me." - explaining that her jewelry were gifts from her husband, children, and "even the dog."

Reports have it that during one trip to New York in May 1983, Imelda spent more than $2 million for jewelry, and another $1.3 million for purchases that included $23,000 for books, $43,370 for flatware, $10,000 for antique dessert service, $34,880 for limousines, and $10,340 for bed sheets.

A $5 million dollar collection of rare 17th and 18th century English paintings, furniture and pottery from the apartment of philantrophist Leslie R. Samuel was supposed to be auctioned off. The auction was cancelled because Imelda purchased the whole lot.

No price tag is just too high for Madame.

Another report recounted how Imelda closed Bloomingdale's in New York for a private shopping extravaganza, walking through the store, pointing at items and simply declaring "Mine. Mine. Mine."

How could Imelda splurge on these shopping sprees while eight out of ten Filipinos lived on less than $2 per day? The answer invariably goes back to Madame's philosophy of Beauty.

"Yes, I bought those things [referring to her 21-yr shopping spree] for my country, only the best," she says with a defiant air. "It is shallow people who think beauty is frivolous and excessive. If you are bringing beauty and God, you are enriching the country. Rice feeds the body, books feed the mind, beauty feeds the soul. It is one thing I can really be proud of and stand tall in the world."

How can one counter such consistency, such single-minded purpose to uphold beauty. Beauty is the key to everything. Beauty is God made real.

"Filipinos want beauty." "People say I'm extravagant because I want to be surrounded by beauty. But tell me, who wants to be surrounded by garbage?"

"Win or lose, we go shopping after the election."

So the next time you find yourself in a shopping mall, think of Madame and see the beauty in each and every merchandise. Then shop till you drop!

Shopping. Beauty. God. The Filipino People. It follows, doesn't it.

Shoes: The Apotheosis of Truth, Beauty and Freedom

Reclining Venus, Goddess of Beauty by Canova

Reclining Imelda, BBC News

A huge portrait of Imelda hangs like a mini shrine over her shoe collection at the Marikina City Footwear Museum. Madame donated 749 pairs of shoes to the Museum.

What do these Shoes actually symbolize? Avarice? Wretched excess? Transcendent vulgarity? Uh-uh! These shoes epitomize Truth, Beauty, and Freedom.

The Truth
"I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty." There you go. It was not 3,000 or 2,700 as some reports have it but 1,060. So it would only take Madame less than a year to use all these shoes if she uses at least 3 pairs per day - not 2.5 years as some accounts related.

"One Thousand and Sixty only, to be exact."

President Marcos even defended the First Lady's collection by emphasizing that it took her 20 years! 20 years to amass these 3,000 pairs. Much ado about nothing.

The Beauty

"They went into my closets looking for skeletons, but thank God, all they found were shoes, beautiful shoes," Madame smilingly told reporters.

"This Museum is making a subject of notoriety into an object of beauty." Do I detect a Freudian slip in this comment...

"More than anything, the museum will symbolize the spirit and culture of the Filipino people." Did Madame mean our dystopian tendency? I cannot obliterate the image of 3,000 pairs of shoes trampling over the Filipino people.

The Freedom
Lance Morrow's essay on the topic elucidated that the purpose of having riches is "to buy freedom - to purchase choices, immunities from the will of others, or of fate." For Imelda, it was not a question of using these shoes per se. Rather, it was the knowledge that these shoes gave her options.

"What's wrong with shoes? I collected them because it was like a symbol of thanksgiving and love?"

At the end of the day, our preoccupation with Madame's shoes is but a smear campaign that tried but failed to undermine the good, the beautiful and the real that is Madame.

"Much ado about nothing, really."

"Bakit mayroong mga Pilipino na naninira kay Presidente at kay First Lady? Hindi ba nila alam na kami ang Tatay at Nanay ng Bayang Pilipino? Kung kamote ang Tatay at kung kamote ang Nanay, kamote ang Pilipino! Ang kamote ay hindi nag-aanak ng kamatis."

A Different Way of Thinking

"I have a different way of thinking. I think synergistically. I am not linear in thinking, I'm not very logical."

Madame definitely has a different way of thinking. Consider the following Imeldisms:

1. "Continuous persecution of widows and orphans is a crime." Swindle and theft, on the other hand, may be justified in the fight for survival. In self defense, anything goes.
2. "I have never been a material girl." But then again, "They [the poor] want their First Lady to look like a million dollars." And "I get so tired listening to one million dollars here, one million dollars there."
3. "Tell me who wants to be surrounded by garbage?" But now she wears recycled garbage she makes into jewels. "It's beautiful!" "I am more bejeweled than before. Bejeweled by garbage."

Truly a paradox worthy of emulation. Reason defies logic anytime, right? And in the end, synergism is achieved. Happy, Sad, Pacman. It all makes sense!

The Unelected

"I am First Lady by accident. I was not elected by the people but here I am."

with Lady Bird Johnson,  President Lyndon Baines Johnson's First Lady

with Sirikit of Thailand, Queen Consort of King Rama IX (Bhumibol Adulyadej)

with Empress Farah Diba, consort of Shah Muhamad Reza Pahlavi

with Madame Tien, First Lady of President Suharto

with Carmen Polo, First Lady of Francisco Franco

with Princess Margaret of the United Kingdom

witht the First Ladies of the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Vietnam, Thailand, and the United States

same group as above (except South Korea's First Lady) with the Taal Lake and Volcano as backdrop

Imelda Attends the Opening of the Sydney Opera House

Is that a sneer I see she's wearing on her face in this photo? She must be thinking, the Australians are nothing but copycats! She inaugurated the Cultural Center of the Philippines, an iconic architectural masterpiece beside the sea at Manila Bay on 08 September 1969 while the Sydney Opera House was inaugurated almost four years later on 28 June 1973. Both edifices are dedicated to the propagation of the arts; of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Both sit astride an abutment into the harbor. They are nothing, but third-rate trying-hard copy cats!

Imelda on the Philosophy of Beauty

Truly a beautyful mynd!

Principle of Deniability - Always Attribute What You Say to Others

"And my scientists tell me that these forces are so powerful that we can use them to protect you, our American friends, against Soviet missiles." -- on the hole in the sky where cosmic forces supposedly enter the Philippines, during a lecture to 20 American scientists in January 1982, cited in Raymond Bonner's Waltzing with a Dictator

Note how she emphasized the point "And my scientists tell me..." If challenged, it can always be attributed to her scientists!