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New Imee Marcos `Tommy thought it would be better to make a clean break` and preempt the rumors. . . meanwhile, the reluctant politician in the family is giving politics much thought (out of a sense of filial duty) Genetically, hers was a dream combination. The eldest offspring of a brilliant intellectual and a classic beauty, the girl was born to a world brimming with the high hopes and towering expectations. Her father named his first born after the wife he adored - a delicate Imelda - but raised his daughter to think and act like a man. Imee Marcos had a perfectly normal childhood, at least for the first nine, years. But by the time she blew ten candles on her birthday cake, her life has been inevitably altered - because her father, Marcos, had just been elected President of the Philippines. To millions of Filipinos, Imee Marcos became an archetypal princess who lived in the palace by the river. "Sometimes, I'd tell my kids stories about my own childhood and they'd think I was really weird," she quips. Her three sons - Martin, Michael, and Matthew, aged between 13 to 7 - are quite oblivious to their lineage. Having been raised abroad, away from the public attention that usually hounds the Marcoses and their kin, Imee's boys thrive as " regular kid" in Singapore, where they take public transport to school, walk unchaperoned in the streets and eat cafeteria food. "I want them to go out, just be themselves and get away with it," says the self-dubbed mamarazzi (she just loves taking pictures!). "I don't want to bring my sons back to Manila because it would oblige me to hire all the heavies - you know, big bodyguards with major firepower and so on. It happened to me already and it wasn't fun." True. Politics was never kid-friendly. And when you have a former president for grandfather, a congresswoman grandmother, a senatorial hopeful for an uncle - and possibly, another congresswoman for a mom - going through life's daily course can be a pleasurable as a tooth extraction. Ask Imee Marcos. She lived in a palace for 20 years. "I was a lousy crypto-princess!" she quips. "I just wasn't very good at the job. I hated being where I was; I didn't like that kind of public life. I was a product of mistraining because of circumstances." Her father took great pride in the fact that Imee inherited his academic acumen, and she vowed not to disappoint him. After topping her class at an English boarding school and graduating with honours from Princeton University, she dutifully treaded the political waters - first, as national chairperson of the Kabataang barangay, then eventually, as a Member of Parliament, representing the second district of Ilocos. These, on top of the innumerable socio-civic and cultural organizations she chaired. "My friend used to say I was so visible, you couldn't buy fish in the market and not see my face on the wrapping paper," she recalls. "Actually, it was awful! I think the press was very indulgent with me at the time simply because they could count on me to say something totally outrageous. I was immensely quotable, not in a very knowledgeable way, but simply because I was always saying things to freak out the palace!" The "palace", of course, is Malacañang, official residence of the head of the republic. Meaning her dad. Did she
upset him? "No! He was very entertained by all the high jinks. Well,
sometimes he'' get really annoyed, but most of the time, he was very amused."
She recounts an incident when she led her youth group out into the streets
to protest the presence of US bases - despite her father's open policy
of supporting such military installations. "My father got a call
from someone seriously important from the state Department, asking him
why his daughter was out pounding the pavement and making noise. Well,
my dad said: What do you want me to do? I can't control my daughter and
run this country at the same time!" But that was a long time ago, she concedes, when she was prodded by quixotic notions and fancied her life as "a soap opera drama". On hindsight, marriage to Manotoc brought a large measure of freedom. "It got me out of the palace," she explains. "Also, Tommy's very good at simplifying his life. He'd decided that what's important to him is sports, and whether people consider that as a serious profession or not, it's their problem. It allowed me to think that way also, and somehow, your days suddenly made sense because you spend time on what you really, truly want." After marriage came motherhood, which opened a whole new world for the once-harried First Daughter. "I never wanted to have children," she reveals. "I used to be one of those shoulder-padded, power-launching feminist in the early Eighties who found it very difficult to relate to womanly roles. Having the boys snapped me out of that. I also discovered a talent for domesticity. I suddenly found myself cooking for the family, hanging around the house and just being with my sons. Before, if I didn't have an appointment by 8 a.m., there was no meaning to my life! "But after motherhood and exile, I don't care about wearing power suits anymore. I don't have to look or to feel that I'm in charge. It's not that important to me now." Exile meant
the "lost years" between 1986 and 1991 - when the Marcoses were
forced out of the country following a coup that has been entered into
the annals of Philippine history as the "EDSA revolution". After
a brief stay in the United States, Imee and her growing family found themselves
constantly on the run. The eldest was three and the youngest was still nursing. In the meantime, we had all these lawsuits. It wasn't individuals anymore - we had governments hunting us down. Then you have the media thing that was so overblown. We were always stuck somewhere between the headlines." The biggest blow on the usually stoic Imee was the demise of her father, whom she endlessly refers to with a tender combination of fondness and reverence. Ferdinand Marcos died in Hawaii in 1988. "The last time I saw my dad was in Marsh 1986 - then I never saw him again. Neither did I see the rest of the family for about five years." It was painful
not seeing her father "At that time, it drove almost crazy. I was
so used to reporting to him almost every day, because in addition to being
my dad, he was very much a mentor. I reported to him constantly about
everything. Imee's clashes with the senior Imelda had always been grist for the gossip mill. They were poles apart. Imelda, for instance, built herself a reputation for being "patroness of the arts" and rebuked her daughter for being a purveyor of pop". Having grown up poor in a sleepy Visayan province, Imelda made her way to the niche of the rich and famous through a master stroke of fortune - marrying the man who would be king. On the other hand, daughter Imee, who grew up in a palace and was sent (aides in tow) to a hoity-toity boarding school, came home raring to sport her favourite roundneck KB t-shirt and mingle with the blue-jeans generation. Her mother also couldn't understand why Imee immersed herself so much in academic pursuits - "brainiac activities" as she referred to them - and was frustrated at her daughter's disregard for feminine graces. On hindsight, Imee summarises the whole episode in one line: "She made me feel ugly and I made her feel dumb." "I used to have this huge complex because in this beauty-obsessed country, having a world-class beauty for a mom is a real problem. I don't look like her at all! And people can be so horrible. All the time, you'd hear them wondering why I didn't have the slightest resemblance to my mom. As a teenager, it was very difficult and it didn't help things a lot. It came to a point where my mother was in a dilemma about whether or not to take me out because she not to take me out because she wanted to spare me the snide remarks. That was a big crisis in her life and mine as well." But that, too, is a thing of the past. Having lost the man who was central to both their lives, mother and daughter found themselves healing the rift that divided them. "We've learned to accept each other much more," avers Imee, whose dark, deep-set eyes have always shrouded her with an almost mystical persona. "All is forgiven. When you became a mother, you realize where all those maternal concerns come from and you find yourself asking all those dumb questions you hated when you were small." She has also learned to appreciate her mother more, not just as a parent, but as an individual. "She's very caring, very giving. She's open-minded and accepting of so many things. She doesn't judge people. She's very tolerant. She even likes Dennis Rodman - she thinks his hair is great! Really, she has no preconceived notions about anything or anyone, and I think it served her well in politics. Everything is tabula rasa for her." And as the years fly by, the younger Imelda has learned to recognize they are not so different after all. "If there has to be a 'new Imee', it would consist of more Mommy and less Daddy. Although I still carry certain habits derived from my father, I've realized my actual concerns are really more like my mom's." Imee Marcos has also settled well into the life of being single again. Asked when her marriage to Tommy Manotoc began to fizzle, she retorts: "The truth or the announcement? It's been a while. It was sort of a friendly acceptance that we were very different and would prefer to spend time in ways that were enjoyable to ourselves." At the onset, she describes it as a period spent in denial. "You're drifting apart but you don't want to accept that it was actually happening. You keep on saying that it's normal. But the truth is, you're starting to spend less and less time together. The announcement,
she says, was her husband's decision. Tommy thought it would be better
to make a clean break and not make their own speculations." Eventually, she would have to bring them home to Manila, especially if she decides to take up politics again. "There seems to be this obligation to return to the family firm, but at the moment, I'm very much of two minds. I'm a very reluctant politician. I'm too outspoken by nature - not even I the spirit of rebellion. I was born that way. And I guess that doesn't wash down well with a lot of people. "I keep on trying to fight the adage: He who rides the tiger can never get off, I really want to get off." For the past 11 years, she has tried to ignore both pleas and pressures to return to politics. "I always tell them it's bad for the skin, but then that's not a good excuse," she grins. Seriously, though, she has given the idea much thought and is likely to join her mother and brother in the political arena, if only out of a sense of filial duty - "as a good Marcos." Just as
it has always been in the past, chances are, Imee Marcos is likely to
enter politics again because of her father. Where once it used to be fulfillment
of his expectations, not it would be to serve his memory.
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