Imelda Marcos

Biography

Imelda Romualdez Marcos (locally [ɪˈmelda ɾoˈmwɐldɛs ˈmaɾkɔs]; born Imelda Remedios Visitación Trinidad Romuáldez; July 2, 1929) is a Filipino politician who was First Lady of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986, wielding significant political power after her husband Ferdinand Marcos placed the country under martial law in September 1972. She is the mother of current president Bongbong Marcos. During her husband's 21-year rule, Imelda Marcos ordered the construction of many grandiose architectural projects, using public funds and "in impossibly short order" – a propaganda practice, which eventually came to be known as her "edifice complex". She and her husband stole billions of pesos from the Filipino people, amassing a personal fortune estimated to have been worth US$5 billion to US$10 billion by the time they were deposed in 1986; by 2018, about $3.6 billion of this had been recovered by the Philippine government, either through compromise deals or sequestration cases. Marcos and her family gained notoriety for living a lavish lifestyle during a period of economic crisis and civil unrest in the country. She spent much of her time abroad on state visits, hosting extravagant parties, and indulging in expensive shopping sprees, spending much of the State's money on her personal art, jewelry and shoe collections – amassing 3,000 pairs of shoes. The subject of dozens of court cases around the world, she was eventually convicted of corruption charges in 2018 for her activities during her term as governor of Metro Manila; the case is under appeal. She and her husband hold the Guinness World Record for the "Greatest Robbery of a Government", putting Suharto of neighboring Indonesia at second. The People Power Revolution in February 1986 unseated the Marcoses and forced the family into exile in Hawaii. In 1991, President Corazon Aquino allowed the Marcos family to return to the Philippines to face various charges after the 1989 death of Ferdinand. Imelda Marcos was elected four times to the House of Representatives of the Philippines, and ran twice for the presidency of the Philippines but failed to garner enough votes.

== Early life ==

Imelda Remedios Visitación Romuáldez was born at dawn in San Miguel, Manila, on July 2, 1929. Her parents were Vicente Orestes Romuáldez, a lawyer, and his second wife, María Remedios Trinidad who was born and raised in Baliwag, Bulacan. Imelda is the sixth of Vicente's eleven children, and Remedios' firstborn. Her paternal great-grandfather was Fray Francisco Miguel López Silgado, a Spanish friar and silversmith from Granada, Andalusia, who became the parish priest of Pandacan in Manila. Born into the Romualdez political dynasty from the province of Leyte, Imelda grew up in a wealthy clan of devout Catholics. She was baptized in the nearby San Miguel Church on the day after her birth. Notable members of Imelda's family include the clan matriarch Doña Trinidad López de Romuáldez; her uncle Norberto Romualdez, who was a Supreme Court Associate Justice; and her younger brother Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez, who served as Governor of Leyte and later as an ambassador under the regime of Imelda's husband, Ferdinand Marcos. At the time of her birth, the Romuáldez clan were wealthy, until around 1932 when the fortune of Imelda's family began to decline. Imelda's parents separated for a time, during which Remedios worked for the nuns at the Asilo de San Vicente de Paul. Vicente and Remedios eventually reconciled but to avoid further conflict, she and her children, including Imelda, moved to their house's garage. In 1937, after Conchita's birth, Remedios' health began to fail and she died on April 7, 1938, due to double pneumonia. In her ten years of marriage, Remedios had six children: Imelda, Benjamín, Alita, Alfredo, Armando, and Conchita. In November 1938, Imelda's father gave up living in Manila due to his declining fortunes in his law practice and returned to Tacloban, where he could support his family with a simpler lifestyle. She grew up speaking the Waray language, and then learned the Tagalog language and eventually English.

== Education ==

=== Elementary === Imelda finished grade one at the nearby College of the Holy Spirit Manila, where her older half-sisters also studied. She continued her early studies at Holy Infant Academy, a convent school run by the Order of Saint Benedict. The old wooden structure of the school still stands today four blocks away from the Romualdez house. At school, Imelda had to face her family's humiliating poverty, and she was frequently among the students who had to apologize for late payments.

=== High school === In 1942, the Romualdezes returned to Tacloban, and around that time, Imelda's father refused to let her go back to school. When the Americans returned in 1944, she was eager to resume her studies at Leyte Progressive High School. She finished her first year at the provincial high school where she was also chosen Miss I-A; then in her second year, she moved to Holy Infant and stayed there until she graduated. Imelda continued her higher studies at Holy Infant Academy from 1938 to 1948, the year she graduated from high school. As a student, her scholastic record shows that she had a general average of 80 percent throughout her primary and high school.

=== College === Imelda ran for President of the student council at St. Paul's College (now named Divine Word University) in 1951, three years before her marriage to Marcos. At that time, she was about to graduate with a degree in Education. She was put up as a candidate for the Department of Education, which had an enrollment of 800 students. Even during the nomination, her victory was already a foregone conclusion, but the school authorities insisted that another candidate be put up to make the elections a democratic procedure. That was how the College of Law, with 200 students, put up Francisco Pedrosa. While an undergraduate student, Marcos taught at a local Chinese high school before graduating in 1952. She had won a scholarship to study music at the Philippine Women's University under Adoración Reyes, a close friend of the family. She briefly held a job at a music store but left this for a better one at the Central Bank. After a few lessons, Adoración was convinced that Imelda had talent and persuaded her to enroll at the College of Music and Fine Arts at Philippine Women's University (PWU), under a special arrangement that put her on register while Adoración continued to give her free lessons.

== Early career ==