IMELDA

Besides her impressive shoe collection and being famous (or rather infamous) for being Ferdinand Marcos’s wife, I’m pretty much clueless when it comes to Imelda Marcos. Watching a documentary on her gave me an interesting look into this sort of “origin story” of hers.

Apparently, she was quite the catch back in the day. Ferdinand took notice and after a week of what could only be called a whirlwind romance, the two got hitched. To be honest, I was quite skeptical with most of the film’s content, although I still did try to be open-minded while watching. So when they got married less than 2 weeks after they first met, the first thing I thought of was that it was ridiculous. Second, I bet it was just a political move by Marcos. As Marcos rose to power, apparently, so did she. She was making all of these international trips, meeting and making meetings with foreign executives like she was the President of the Philippines. I mean, yes if you’re married to the president of the country, you get certain privileges and a particular level of authority but honestly, I think she was just enjoying her status just a wee bit much.

Another thing I found sketchy was the assassination attempt on Imelda. I mean, it was either a really poor attempt by an incompetent assassin-wannabe, or it was staged. Because honestly, if the guy really wanted to take out Imelda, he would have been better off had he targeted a more sensible body part to attack. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I wanted the guy to succeed, I’m just saying it doesn't quite make sense. I mean, I’m thankful for the fact that Imelda had numerous structures (particularly the CCP among others) built for the country (which lead to her being tagged as having an “edifice complex” which I think was pretty clever for whoever came up with it).

After watching the documentary and seeing all of the things that have happened in her life, one thing that stuck to me the most was when she was drawing these symbols near the end of the film. there were too many symbols and combinations of symbols to remember (hence the time lapse). And so, the last thing I remember thinking as the film ended was, "Wow. This woman is delusional."