Imelda R. Marcos (born Imelda Remedios Visitacion Trinidad Romualdez on July 2, 1929) is the widow of former President Ferdinand Marcos, and is herself an influential political figure in the Philippines. She is sometimes referred to as the Steel Butterfly or the Iron Butterfly .
Early life
Imelda was born on July 2, 1929 in San Juan de Dios Hospital in Manila. Her parents were Vicente Orestes Lopez Romualdez (of Spanish-Chinese-Filipino blood) and Remedios Trinidad (1902–1938) , the second wife of the widowed Vicente. She is of Visayan and Tagalog descent. Her paternal ancestors, the wealthy and prominent Lopezes of Leyte, claimed to have founded the town of Tolosa, Leyte . Her own branch of the family was not political. Her father was a scholarly man more interested in music and culture than in public life. Her mother, Remedios Trinidad, a dressmaker who grew up in an orphanage in Manila, said to have been an illegitimate offspring of a friar, was from the town of Baliuag, Bulacan.
Marcos spent her childhood in the shadow of the Malacañang Palace in San Miguel District in Manila, since her family then lived near San Miguel Church. After Marcos's mother Remedios died, and their home foreclosed, her father, Vicente, moved his family back to Leyte to live with relatives, where Marcos earned a bachelor's degree in education at St. Paul's College."
She became a beauty queen. At the age of 18, she was crowned the "Rose of Tacloban," became "Miss Leyte", went to Manila in 1953. Her photogenic face soon graced many of Manila's magazine covers and she was named the "Muse of Manila" by then Manila Mayor, Arsenio Lacson, a special title given her after she protested her loss in the Miss Manila pageant. In 1954, Marcos met then-Ilocos Norte Congressman Ferdinand E. Marcos. After a whirlwind courtship in Baguio during Holy Week, they were married in May of that year at the Manila Pro-Cathedral Church with President Ramon Magsaysay as principal sponsor. They have four children: Maria Imelda "Imee" Marcos, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr., Irene Marcos, and Aimee Marcos, who was adopted.
In 1966, Ferdinand Marcos became the 10th President of the Philippines. Together with Imelda, he would rule the Philippines from September 21, 1972 up to his removal in February 1986 in the famous People Power Revolution when he fled the Philippines.
First Lady
In December 1965, Ferdinand E. Marcos became the 10th Philippine President of the Philippines.
In 1969, Ferdinand Marcos became the first President of the Philippine Republic to be re-elected a second and last 4-year term amidst charges of vote buying and election fraud. On September 23, 1972, he declared martial law to preserve his hold on power. It was during the martial law period that President Marcos abolished the Philippines' 1935 constitution and established a parliamentary system (Batasang Pambansa or National Assembly) composed mainly of his own political appointees. It was during this period that Imelda Marcos assumed a more public and powerful role in the government. She was appointed by her husband to various positions in the government, such as: Governor of Metropolitan Manila, Minister of Human Settlement, and Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary. On December 7, 1972, an assailant, Carlito Dimahilig, tried to stab her to death with a bolo knife during an award ceremony broadcast live on television. Although the assassination attempt appears to have been staged, the government claimed that the assailant was shot to death by security police and that the wounds on Marcos' hands and arms required 75 stitches. In 1978, she was 'elected' as member of the 165-member Interim Batasang Pambansa (National Assembly) representing the National Capital Region.
As a Special Envoy, Marcos toured China, the Soviet Union, and the Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe (Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, etc.), the Middle East, Libya, the non-Soviet dominated communist state of Yugoslavia, and Cuba. To justify the multi-million expenditure of traveling with a large diplomatic entourage using private jets, she would later claim diplomatic successes that included securing of a cheap supply of oil from China and Libya, and in the signing of the Tripoli Agreement.
Marcos's extravagant lifestyle reportedly included five-million-dollar shopping tours in New York, Rome and Copenhagen in 1983, and sending a plane to pick up Australian white sand for a new beach resort. She purchased a number of properties in Manhattan in the 1980s, including the $51-million Crown Building and the $60-million Herald Centre; she declined to purchase the Empire State Building for $750m as she considered it "too ostentatious." Her New York real estate was later seized and sold, along with much of her jewels and most of her 175 piece art collection, which included works by Michelangelo, Botticelli, and Canaletto. She responded to criticisms of her extravagance by claiming that it was her "duty" to be "some kind of light, a star to give guidelines."
Marcos orchestrated lavish public events using millions of dollars in public funds to extol her husband's regime and bolster her public image. Marcos secured the Miss Universe 1974 pageant for Manila which necessitated the construction and completion of the 10,000-seat Folk Arts Theater in less than three months. Marcos organized the Kasaysayan ng Lahi, an extravagant festival parade showcasing the history of the Philippines. She initiated social programs such as the Green Revolution, a program that, although did not address hunger and the core problem of agricultural land reform (most Filipino farmers were tenant farmers and did not own their land), encouraged Filipinos to plant vegetables and fruits in their gardens. Other short-lived social programs included a national family-planning program to reduce the country's population growth.
Marcos was criticized for spending hundreds of millions of dollars on high-profile infrastructure projects that did little to alleviate poverty and were beyond the reach of ordinary Filipinos. These included the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Philippine Heart Center, Lung Center of the Philippines, Kidney Institute of the Philippines, Nayong Pilipino; Philippine International Convention Center, Folk Arts Theater, Coconut Palace, and the infamous Manila Film Center, a costly and imposing edifice built in 1982 to host Marcos's short-lived international film festival. By 1985, it was estimated that the Philippine government had acquired more than $28 billion in foreign loans, much of it during President Marcos' 20-year rule.
Exile
On February 25, 1986, Ferdinand Marcos and his family fled to Hawaii (via Guam) after his regime was toppled by the four-day People Power Revolution in EDSA. Marcos was succeeded by Corazon C. Aquino, widow of Benigno Aquino, Jr., Marcos' foremost political rival who was assassinated at the Manila International Airport during his return to the Philippines in 1983 after years of political exile. It was widely assumed that Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were involved in the assassination which ignited the People Power Revolution of 1986. Upon assuming office, President Aquino issued Executive Order No. 1, creating the Presidential Commission on Good Government to investigate and sequester the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses. President Aquino abolished the Batasang Pambansa (Philippine Parliament) and the Ministry of Human Settlements, both creations of Marcos, and established in 1987 a modified version of the Philippines' original 1935 constitution abolished in 1972 by Marcos.
After the Marcos family fled Malacañang Palace, Marcos was found to have left behind 15 mink coats, 508 gowns, 1000 handbags and 3000 pairs of shoes. In February 2006, Marcos insisted that her husband acquired his wealth legitimately as a gold trader. By the late 1950s, she claimed, he had amassed a personal fortune of 7,500 tons of gold, and after gold prices climbed in the 1970s, the Marcos family was worth about $35 billion. However, the Bureau of Internal Revenue has no record of the Marcos family declaring or paying taxes on these assets, and the source of their wealth remains open to investigation.
Ousted President Marcos died in exile on September 28, 1989. President Aquino refused to permit the repatriation of his remains for national security reasons. The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the government in Marcos vs. Manglapus . In 1991, Marcos was allowed to return home. Marcos was the first wife of a foreign head of state to stand trial in an American court. In 1990 she was acquitted of racketeering and fraud charges, alongside co-defendant Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian former billionaire and arms dealer. The "theatrical" trial involved many celebrities: Marcos and Khashoggi were represented by trial lawyer Gerry Spence; Marcos' $5 million dollar bail was posted by tobacco heiress Doris Duke; and actor George Hamilton was a star witness for the defense.
Return
In 1992, Mrs. Marcos ran and finished fifth in the seven-way presidential race. Her votes were split between her, with 2,338,294 votes, and Ambassador
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