But the real results weren’t to be known: Ferdinand declared he won with one set of dubious vote counts while his detractors held up another set that showed Corazon on top, amid widespread reports of fraud and tampering.įerdinand tried to cling to power, but hundreds of thousands took to the streets, calling for him to step down. Corazon Aquino, Ninoy’s widow who had become a symbol of a growing pro-democracy movement, ran against him. In a bid to prove that the people of the Philippines still adored him and Imelda, Ferdinand announced a snap election in February 1986. While their connection to Ninoy’s murder remains unproven to this day, his death sparked an immense and prolonged backlash against the couple’s autocratic rule. The couple was rumored to have ordered his killing, which was carried out by the military. She was determined to prove that she was nonetheless revered-from staging pageants and boxing matches to distract from the brutality of her husband’s authoritarianism to taking center stage in international diplomacy, hobnobbing with the likes of Richard Nixon, Mao Zedong, and a young then- Prince Charles.ĭisaffection with Ferdinand and Imelda reached a turning point with the 1983 assassination of Ninoy, the opposition leader. Still, Imelda didn’t want to be seen as merely a dictator’s wife. It was the start of a nine-year period rife with human rights violations, but it was also the beginning of what would ultimately lead to Ferdinand’s downfall.Īs the omnipotent chief executive, Ferdinand could indefinitely extend his and Imelda’s official grip on power, snuffing out political obstacles and opposition. ![]() That’s when he declared nationwide martial law, dissolving Congress to consolidate control of government and cracking down on dissent through arbitrary arrests and the shuttering of independent media. With growing protests from opposition leaders, student groups, and the rural and urban poor, the couple’s power came increasingly under threat-and, by 1972, Ferdinand, having already been elected twice, could not run for a third time. Over the course of their debt-ridden rule, the Marcoses tried to give the impression that their own personal opulence was reflective of the Philippines’ prosperity, but the national economy only worsened, and discontent eventually triggered social unrest. Together, the two Marcoses embarked on a populist charm offensive, presenting themselves across the archipelago as complementary figures of strength and beauty, as the Southeast Asian nation’s own John Fitzgerald and Jacqueline Kennedy, promising to usher in a new era of governance. Crucially, it seems, Imelda also discovered that if she could shape her own personal narrative for the betterment of her health, so too could she engineer a public narrative to promote the advancement of her husband’s career and their collective status. ![]() “I don’t know what life would be without politics,” biographer Katherine Ellison later quoted her saying. Imelda emerged from her psychological treatment now eager to climb the ladder with her husband. She told herself she was lucky, and she was.” It worked, wrote biographer Kerima Polotan-Tuvera: “Suggestion had become fact. Her aversion changed, however, after she sought treatment for relentless migraines in New York, where doctors reportedly advised that she practice “autosuggestion”-the technique of telling yourself what you want to be true until you believe it. Indeed, although Imelda was born in 1929 into one of the Philippines’ famed political dynasties, the Romualdezes, a series of misfortunes-her mother died of pneumonia when Imelda was 8 and her father had become nearly bankrupt-led her family to move from Manila to her father’s hometown of Leyte. ![]() Therefore she cannot have enough of everything,” Tessie Tomas, a veteran Philippine actress known for her satirical impersonations of Imelda, tells TIME. “I think the core of Imelda’s character is, of course, she comes from a very poor family. Her character in the show, however, does mention not having any shoes when she was young. ![]() Here Lies Love leaves out any reference to the one thing most people already know about Imelda: the thousands of shoes she’s amassed, several hundred of which now sit on display in a museum that she helped to open on the outskirts of Manila. “Perception is real,” Imelda explained in the 2019 documentary The Kingmaker. Throughout her life, she’s carefully crafted a narrative of beauty and adoration-whether as a rags-to-riches tale of success, a patron of the arts, or a fashion icon-that has ultimately helped to obscure the much uglier reality of complicity, corruption, and criminality that has actually defined her life. “When you think about it, the only true Filipino international celebrity is Imelda Marcos,” historian Ambeth Ocampo tells TIME.Īttention, it seems, has been the currency Imelda has most sought to enrich herself with.
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