This is the Life!
Madame dreamed of a small house with a picket fence and voila...She got Malacanang! The extravagance that ensued throughout her reign as First Lady and thereafter are truly what puny dreams are made of.
Classic View of Malacanan Palace from the Pasig River
The entrance to the Palace
Imelda looking pensive on a balcony of Malacanan Palace, 25 February 1986, the day before she and the rest of the regime ignominiously left the Palace and the country into exile.
But Madame is by no means unique! Throughout history, we've seen and heard stories of First Ladies having the same dreams turn puny compared to reality. As one famous author succinctly described, "There's a goddess/monster thing going on with imperial women. The emperors were treated as semi-divine so their wives were treated with reflected divinity; or - if they were at all dodgy - became horrific monsters."
Tunisia's Leila Trabelsi raided the country's gold reserve by 35 million pounds. Zimbabwe's Grace Mugabe enjoyed a shopping spree in Hongkong worth 69,200 pounds. Haiti's Michelle Pasquet's marriage to Jean-Claude Duvalier commenced with a 3 million pounds nuptials.
"There are moments when it seems that the world's affairs are transacted by dreamers. There is a sadness here in the spectacle of nations, no less than individuals, helping each other along with their delusions. This way what is thought to be clear-sighted pragmatism may actually be shoring up a regime's ideology whose hidden purpose is itself nothing more than to assuage the pain of a single person's unhappy past." (James Hamilton-Paterson in his book America's Boy, as he described the Marcos era in his chapter on The Politics of Fantasy). Does this define all these women's actions too?
I daresay it does. So how can we fault Madame or any of these women who've successfully epitomized a coruscated depiction of grave corruption with beauty? But then again, Madame is a cut above all of them any day. She is the dictator's wife's dictator's wife.
"I was born ostentatious. They will list my name in the dictionary someday. They will use "Imeldific" to mean ostentatious extravagance." This did not mean that she didn't care for the less fortunate people though.
"Where did the basic services come from - water, power, food, shelter? I conceptualized this as governor of Metro Manila for 11 years. And who reclaimed hundreds of hectares and built homes for the people of Tondo and gave them little pieces of land? Who built the housing projects, by the millions, for the poor? Who brought food to the Kadiwa Centers and rolling stores to bring cheap food to the poor? Mrs. Marcos - in every aspect, from womb to tomb."
In her mind, "I am my little people's star and slave. When I go out into the barrios, I get dressed because my little people want to see a star. Other president's wives have gone into the barrio wearing house dresses and slippers. That's not what people want to see. People want someone they can love, someone to set an example."
So she did what she did for her little people! I get it now. In so doing, her dreams became puny compared to reality.
They say the true mark of a First Lady whose dreams have become puny compared to reality - the apotheosis of wifely despotism, is no longer to be a goddess but to be heroine in a musical. Eva Peron was immortalized in Evita with the hit song "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" - an ironic attempt to assuage her pain perhaps?
Not to be left out, Madame's life inspired David Byrne and Fatboy Slim to write "Here Lies Love" - a 22-track song cycle about Madame and her love for disco. Byrne remarked, " I imagined that the ecstatic joy and loss of self inherent in a lot of dance music might mirror some of the headiness of a person in power, as well as their view of themselves as a living symbolic entity."
Truly, Madame has set such high standards for First Ladies. And she continues to do so. At 81, her ambition now is to save Mother Earth for humanity by fighting for truth and beauty. Truly indefatigable, right? With 3,000 pairs of shoes, she has left one heck of a carbon footprint in this world.
Tunisia's Leila Trabelsi raided the country's gold reserve by 35 million pounds. Zimbabwe's Grace Mugabe enjoyed a shopping spree in Hongkong worth 69,200 pounds. Haiti's Michelle Pasquet's marriage to Jean-Claude Duvalier commenced with a 3 million pounds nuptials.
"There are moments when it seems that the world's affairs are transacted by dreamers. There is a sadness here in the spectacle of nations, no less than individuals, helping each other along with their delusions. This way what is thought to be clear-sighted pragmatism may actually be shoring up a regime's ideology whose hidden purpose is itself nothing more than to assuage the pain of a single person's unhappy past." (James Hamilton-Paterson in his book America's Boy, as he described the Marcos era in his chapter on The Politics of Fantasy). Does this define all these women's actions too?
I daresay it does. So how can we fault Madame or any of these women who've successfully epitomized a coruscated depiction of grave corruption with beauty? But then again, Madame is a cut above all of them any day. She is the dictator's wife's dictator's wife.
"I was born ostentatious. They will list my name in the dictionary someday. They will use "Imeldific" to mean ostentatious extravagance." This did not mean that she didn't care for the less fortunate people though.
I was born ostentatious!
They will list my name in the dictionary someday.
"Where did the basic services come from - water, power, food, shelter? I conceptualized this as governor of Metro Manila for 11 years. And who reclaimed hundreds of hectares and built homes for the people of Tondo and gave them little pieces of land? Who built the housing projects, by the millions, for the poor? Who brought food to the Kadiwa Centers and rolling stores to bring cheap food to the poor? Mrs. Marcos - in every aspect, from womb to tomb."
In her mind, "I am my little people's star and slave. When I go out into the barrios, I get dressed because my little people want to see a star. Other president's wives have gone into the barrio wearing house dresses and slippers. That's not what people want to see. People want someone they can love, someone to set an example."
I am my people's little star and slave!
So she did what she did for her little people! I get it now. In so doing, her dreams became puny compared to reality.
They say the true mark of a First Lady whose dreams have become puny compared to reality - the apotheosis of wifely despotism, is no longer to be a goddess but to be heroine in a musical. Eva Peron was immortalized in Evita with the hit song "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" - an ironic attempt to assuage her pain perhaps?
Don't Cry for Me, Argentina!
Not to be left out, Madame's life inspired David Byrne and Fatboy Slim to write "Here Lies Love" - a 22-track song cycle about Madame and her love for disco. Byrne remarked, " I imagined that the ecstatic joy and loss of self inherent in a lot of dance music might mirror some of the headiness of a person in power, as well as their view of themselves as a living symbolic entity."
Truly, Madame has set such high standards for First Ladies. And she continues to do so. At 81, her ambition now is to save Mother Earth for humanity by fighting for truth and beauty. Truly indefatigable, right? With 3,000 pairs of shoes, she has left one heck of a carbon footprint in this world.
"The truth is that, life is so beautiful and life is so prosperous and life is so full of potential and life has so much good in it that really, one should not have to sleep.... As long as there's music, flowers, a nice person, a smile, a good deed...gosh!"
Gosh!
"I will come up with a project that will wipe out poverty in the Philippines in two years. I want to remove the people from economic crisis by using the Marcos wealth. Long after I'm gone, people will remember me for building them homes and roads and hospitals and giving them food. The people should stop laughing at all this. They should stop thinking that I'm a bit touched in the head.
They should stop thinking that I am a bit touched in the head!
Touched in the head? Madame? Perish the thought!
"People say I'm extravagant because I want to be surrounded by beauty. But tell me, who wants to be surrounded by garbage? Beauty is God made real and the spirit of love is God. Only a crazy man wants to be surrounded by garbage, and I'm not crazy just yet."
"In the material world, where everything is valued, when you commit yourself to God, beauty and love, it can be mistaken for extravagance."
Beauty. Extravagance. Music. The right attitude. Most of all, no more sleeping. That way, dreams take backstage to reality.
"If you live the way I do, you think heaven and paradise is after death, after the sementeryo. No sir! It can be here. And so hell can be. So you've got to have the right attitude to be in paradise. And I want you all to be in heaven with me. Really, it's true. I can assure you really. I will find for you paradise and heaven even after I come down from Malacanang. And I will have happiness and paradise even after Malacanang."
Little people. 901 civil and criminal cases. Poverty. Forget all of these then. These are not what puny dreams are made of.
"The fight for survival justifies swindle and theft. In self defense, anything goes."
You're a real fighter, Madame!
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