Shrubbery and a high wooden fence with two gates that are kept locked at all times protect the house from the highway. I waved and yelled through the fence, and the gate was finally opened when I made it clear that Mrs.
Marcos was expecting me. Five or six old cars littered the short driveway. Parking was difficult, and the guards were unhelpful. The entrance to the single-story, shingle-roofed, ranch-style house was visually marred by an electric-blue tarpaulin strung up haphazardly between two trees to protect the guards from the sun. Beneath it stood a wooden table and a couple of chairs. On the table were a plate of ripening mangoes and several empty Pepsi-Cola cans.
Entering the small front hallway, a visitor is immediately confronted with the presidential seal, which fills an entire wall. Next to it on a pole is the flag of the Philippines. The house consists of a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, three bedrooms, and a lanai, a sort of porch furnished like a living room which is a feature of most Hawaiian houses. Next to the house is a separate one-room guesthouse.
There are, I learned, more than forty people living here. Most of the original furniture has been removed or replace by rented furniture. A plain wooden table on the terrace was covered with a white plastic tablecloth and surrounded by card-table chairs with mgn rental stenciled on the back. In the living room were several television sets, a VCR, and both audio and video recording equipment.
A Honolulu rumor has it that the Marcoses ruined their friendship with President and Mrs. Reagan by videotaping a private telephone conversation they had with them and later giving the tape to television stations. An upright piano and a synthesizer were pushed against the wall of the lanai. On practically every table surface there were mismatched bouquets of tropical flowers, many wrapped in aluminum foil or tied with homemade bows, unwatered, dying or dead.
There were flies everywhere. About a dozen men in Hawaiian shirts were seated about the room. In a gray suit, shirt, and tie, I felt overcitified. President Marcos, we were told, had a toothache and was at the dentist, but the First Lady would be with us presently. For the first time it occurred to me that all the people there had been summoned, as I had, to see her.
I made conversation with a Filipino journalist from New York who had worked in the consulate when Marcos was in power, and with Anthony Castillo, the pop singer from Manila, who told me that one of the first things Corazon Aquino had done was abolish all the cultural programs started by Imelda Marcos. All the artists in the country, he said, stood behind the Marcoses. And then the First Lady entered the room, the strong scent of heady perfume preceding her.
She moves in an extraordinarily graceful manner; even in those simple rooms she was like a queen in a palace. All of those seated jumped to their feet the moment her presence was felt. Marcos was again dressed as she had been dressed for every public appearance since she arrived in Hawaii: the green dress, black patent-leather shoes, and pearl earrings and ring which were obviously costume jewelry.
Her black hair was majestically coiffed. She gave instructions to a servant to offer coffee to everyone. She greeted a university professor and discussed briefly a paper he was preparing. She exchanged affectionate words with a group of Filipinos who had come from California and New York to participate in the wedding-anniversary celebration.
She pointed out to another visitor a huge color photograph in an ornate gilt frame of the president and her with their children and grandchildren which had been an anniversary gift. I understood before she came to greet me that I was part of a morning levee, one of a group being given an audience and a few words of greeting.
She offered her hand. Her crimson fingernails had been carefully manicured with white moons and white tips.
She is, at fifty-seven, still a beautiful woman. We exchanged a few unmemorable words. When I conveyed greetings from the people who had brought me into contact with her, she indicated that I should take a seat on the lanai. Then, on instructions from her that I was not aware of, the room cleared and we were alone. Imelda Marcos had been described to me by a friend who knew her well as a woman who understood luxury better than anyone in the world. Flies buzzed around us in great profusion, but she seemed not to notice them.
She never waved them away. I had the feeling that she had simply ceased to pay any attention to the surroundings in which she was living.
There is a sense of tremendous sadness about her, but if she is at times despondent, she manages to shake herself into positive pursuits. They tell how Imelda abolished mechanized street cleaning in Manila and dressed the homeless of the city in yellow-and-red uniforms and provided them with brooms and the title Metro Aide—instead of street cleaner—so that the streets would be immaculate around the clock. On a balmy evening a little over a year ago, Malcolm Forbes gave a dinner cruise around Manhattan aboard his yacht, The Highlander, in honor of Mrs.
While the party was still in progress, a lady-in-waiting went around the ship and issued impromptu invitations to a select number of Mr.
On arriving there, guest were taken up to the sixth-floor discotheque, where an enormous supper had been laid. As the festivities came to an end and guests started leaving, Mrs. Marcos proved again that there were inner circles within inner circles by asking a few people to stay behind so that she could show them the private floor of her mansion, where her bedroom and sitting room were.
Two large leather caskets, each about the size of half a desk, were brought out by maids. Each contained seven or eight drawers filled with jewelry, which were emptied onto the floor so that the remaining guests could try them on. That was said to be her favorite late-night entertainment, to forestall going to bed.
A Madison Avenue jeweler who specializes in estate jewelry told me that Mrs. Marcos had a passion for canary diamonds until last year, when the color yellow became associated with the ascendancy of Corazon Aquino. The town house was furnished out of a Park Avenue triplex maisonette that had belonged to the late philanthropists Mr. Leslie R. Instead she bought the entire contents of the enormous apartment so that she could do up the Sixty-sixth Street town house in just a few days in order to be ready for a party she was giving for Adnan Khashoggi.
Although she was reverential about royalty, she had been known to upstage the crowned heads she revered. She once arrived at a party for the shy and retiring Queen of Thailand, for example, with her own television crew to film her being received by the queen. This is a good period for enlightenment. I have no bitterness in my heart.
Disinclined to be questioned, she was more than inclined to talk, and for the three and a half hours that the promised ten minutes eventually stretched into, she talked nonstop on a variety of topics as if she had been starved for conversation. If I sometimes asked things that she did not wish to comment on, she kept talking as if she had not heard me.
Thirty minutes into our visit, I asked if she minded if I wrote down something she had said so that I would be able to record her words accurately.
I felt I was watching a well-rehearsed performance as she expounded at great length on the subject of love, couched in a series of mystical, Rajneesh-sounding philosophical phrases.
Love has only one opposite. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is selfishness. A human being has three levels: his body, his mind, and his spirit. In the spiritual world, you find peace, and none of this matters. Everything we have here comes from the people. All our valuables were impounded. We do not have a single dollar.
Your whole lifetime is exposed to the world. I was a soldier for beauty and love. I was completely selfless. They say about me that I was extravagant, but I gave.
Your magazines and papers say that I bought art. It is true. I bought art, but I bought art to fill our museums so that people could enjoy beauty. There were eleven children. I married a president. I was the First Lady for twenty-one years. Very few have been as privileged as I have. If you are successful and have everything, destiny has a way of imposing money, power, and privilege on you.
This house is very modest, but your real home is the home within. I am so glad that I have one good dress and one good pair of shoes. Long stretches of this material I had seen her deliver on tapes left behind in the Sixty-sixth Street house in New York. The irony was that on the tapes she had been expounding her philosophy in a champagne toast to the munitions entrepreneur Adnan Khashoggi.
Her face is unlined and looked to me unlifted. The only time I thought of having it done was to cover this scar from the assassination attempt on my life. Wear it as your badge of courage. Marcos looked past me but continued talking. I assumed that I had lost her attention and that it was time to leave. She was, in fact, looking at her daughter Irene and indicated by gesture that there was a telephone call for her.
They exchanged a few words in Pilipino. Marcos found the ballet company of Manila. For that, Mrs. Marcos had given her an award with a pension attached to it. She gave a similar award and pension to Van Cliburn. Several times she evinced a mildly gallows-type humor. In her role as first lady, Marcos met a diverse mix of world leaders, from U. President Lyndon B. She sought out political opportunities for herself in addition to supporting her spouse.
In the mids, Marcos served as governor of the metro Manila area, spearheading many costly beautification and development projects. Marcos later served in the interim national assembly and as the minister of human settlements.
While many Filipinos lived in poverty, Imelda Marcos became known for her lavish spending. She traveled to New York City and other destinations to buy expensive fashions, high-end jewelry and other luxury items. But all of this splendor was gained at the cost of the Filipino people. It is believed that the Marcos family and their cronies took billions from the country's coffers. In addition to theft and corruption, the Marcos regime was also known for its oppressive rule.
Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in September , basically making himself the country's dictator. This move allowed him to crush growing resentment among the people and prevent his adversaries from unseating him from power. The Marcos government could be brutal to those who opposed it. Thousands were tortured and others executed without trial. With the assassination of vocal Marcos opponent Benigno Aquino in , the Marcos government began to lose its hold over the Filipino people.
Imelda ended up fleeing the country with her husband after he was forced from office by the People Power movement in In the rush to leave, she left many items behind at the presidential palace. Her impressive collection of roughly 1, pairs of designer shoes made headlines. These fancy pieces of footwear became an international symbol of the former ruling couple's flamboyant spending habits and wealth. Marcos and her husband eventually settled in Hawaii. The pair seemed to live quite comfortably despite facing legal problems and pressure to return the funds believed to be plundered from the Philippine government.
Not long after her husband's death in , Imelda Marcos faced fraud and racketeering charges in an American court. Marcos was acquitted in the case. In , Marcos returned to the Philippines and was arrested the following day, with the government hoping to recoup lost funds believed to be held by the former first lady.
Upon being released on bail, Marcos sought political power for herself once again, running for president the following year. Marcos lost her election bid to military leader Fidel V. Some 70, people were imprisoned, 34, were tortured and over 3, were killed from to when martial law was lifted, according to human rights group Amnesty International. The Marcoses fled into exile in Hawaii, where the strongman died three years later. In , the Supreme Court allowed former Sen.
The same doctrine was also cited by Sandiganbayan when it allowed Marcos to post bail on her graft conviction. With your meaningful insights, help shape the stories that can shape the country. Sign up now! Philstar Global Corp. All Rights Reserved. My Profile Sign Out. Gaea Katreena Cabico - Philstar. Former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos arrives at an anti-graft court Sandiganbayan to explain her side for not attending last week's promulgation of the graft charges against her Friday, Nov.
Related Stories. Imelda Marcos found guilty of graft, faces arrest. Sandiganbayan allows Imelda Marcos to appeal before SC.
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