Imelda Marcos: Beauty is not an extravagance, beauty is life! And beauty is the only thing that can feed the soul.
Anjali Rao: You are such a flamboyant character Mrs Marcos. Why is ostentation so important to you?
IM: It is not ostentation. Because, and flamboyant. And in fact they try to picture me as someone who's "Imeldific" meaning extravagant, excessive, frivolous....And when they asked me if I was and I said in a material world if you are committed to God, beauty and love, you may be perceived as such, but that is not....like for instance, if you are a believer you put flowers incense at the cult altar of your God. For the non believer that is a waste and a frivolity.
IM: It is not ostentation. Because, and flamboyant. And in fact they try to picture me as someone who's "Imeldific" meaning extravagant, excessive, frivolous....And when they asked me if I was and I said in a material world if you are committed to God, beauty and love, you may be perceived as such, but that is not....like for instance, if you are a believer you put flowers incense at the cult altar of your God. For the non believer that is a waste and a frivolity.
You cannot quantify God, beauty and love. And I am committed to that. I am allergic to ugliness because I am a Filipino. You know, in the Philippines they don't stop at good projects just done right, it has to beautiful. In fact, when they greet everybody during the day, they don't just say "guten Morgen, guten Abend, buenos dias, buenas tardes, good morning, good afternoon" they say "Magandang umaga." Meaning beautiful, beautiful morning; beautiful day, beautiful afternoon. We are brainwashed to be beautiful!
AR: Looking at the Philippines though, as a nation in its entirety and how poor it is in many parts. Is it not ironic to you that you're putting on this extravagant show of wealth while all these people are starving and living in desperate conditions?
IM: Well, in the first place, this country is not poor. This country, we were using gold before we were using iron. And we have 92 industrial minerals for industrialization. .We have the five strategic minerals for outer space technology. We have all the minerals!
AR: But the statistic is something like eight out of every ten Filipinos earns less than US$2 a day. Do you think it is right to be putting on a show of extravagant jewelry at a time like that?
IM: Yes. if you compare. But this extravagant jewelry is not for the sake of extravagance or money. This is extravagance of garbage thrown to me by governments around the world. And all the lies and all the vilification and shame that they try to put me on. But all of this I am trying to recycle. I think I have a great attitude! With what they have done to me I should have been 10 feet under the ground already, or in an insane asylum.
IM: Well, in the first place, this country is not poor. This country, we were using gold before we were using iron. And we have 92 industrial minerals for industrialization. .We have the five strategic minerals for outer space technology. We have all the minerals!
AR: But the statistic is something like eight out of every ten Filipinos earns less than US$2 a day. Do you think it is right to be putting on a show of extravagant jewelry at a time like that?
IM: Yes. if you compare. But this extravagant jewelry is not for the sake of extravagance or money. This is extravagance of garbage thrown to me by governments around the world. And all the lies and all the vilification and shame that they try to put me on. But all of this I am trying to recycle. I think I have a great attitude! With what they have done to me I should have been 10 feet under the ground already, or in an insane asylum.
IM: Beauty is not an extravagance, beauty is life! And beauty is the only thing that can feed the soul. And so, you can feed the mind with all the knowledge you can get from the internet. You can get all the food you can get and have good nutrition for your body, but it's only beauty that can feed the soul because beauty is life and God. I take beauty very seriously.
AR: I can tell.
IM: Very seriously.
AR: I can tell.
IM: Very seriously.
IM: Even Confucious said the difference between the peasant and nobility was shoes. And thanks God when the world went to my closet they found shoes not skeletons! Then I would have been not only frivolous but evil if they had found skeletons. And the deeper they went to my closet, the more beauty they found.
IM: Well I have been privileged to have the best, best, best and the worst, worst, worst! But thanks God, when I had the best, best, best I maximized it to the fullest and also my potential. When I had the worst, worst, worst, I recycled it. So when people say: "What is your secret Mrs. Marcos that you can still walk around at 77?" I said: "because I have no problems. My potential I maximize, my problems I recycle. They have problems with me, but I have no problems. I am at peace with the truth.
AR: How do you want people to remember you?
IM: I wouldn't know. I have no control over people's minds and feelings because after all, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I am so sad sometimes, when people don't see beauty and see the truth, and beauty is God made real. Here I am, I see beauty in everything including garbage that I can now create all the garbage thrown to me into jewelry. For me beauty is God made real, for me beauty is spiritual, beauty is life, without beauty there is no life... I am at peace with truth beauty is God made real.
AR: How do you want people to remember you?
IM: I wouldn't know. I have no control over people's minds and feelings because after all, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I am so sad sometimes, when people don't see beauty and see the truth, and beauty is God made real. Here I am, I see beauty in everything including garbage that I can now create all the garbage thrown to me into jewelry. For me beauty is God made real, for me beauty is spiritual, beauty is life, without beauty there is no life... I am at peace with truth beauty is God made real.
IM: You know I have been blessed. My dreams were puny, but in the reality my dreams have become....all I dreamt was a little house, with a little picket fence by the sea. Little did I know I would live in Malacanan Palace for 20 years and visit major palaces of mankind. These last 20 years I have been beleaguered and persecuted and deprived. Name it and I had it. I had been attempted assassination, I had been tried, the trial of the century in America, the 901 cases here and I am prevailing. And I can really say I had no mission that failed.
No comments:
Post a Comment