Imee
of the New Millennium
Woman Today, May 5, 1999
by Bibsy M. Carballo
They
don't call her her father's daughter for nothing. It is obvious from the
moment one gets to meet her that here is one intelligent woman. So it
is also no surprise at all that even after 12 years of absence from the
country, following an ignominious exit in 1986, she would win handily
as Congresswoman of the second district of Ilocos Norte. Certainly a woman
of her own mind, at the forefront of the new millenium, although she quickly
rebuffs any attempt at labeling. She is Ma. Imelda Josefa Remedios Marcos,
Imee to a lot of people.
Then widely believed to be her father's, the late President Ferdinand Marcos, closest confidante and guardian of precious information regarding his wealth, once purportedly estimated by her mother Imelda to be worth about $320 million, Imee has lived with controversy all her life.
From the moment she defied her parents to marry in 1982 the divorced sportsman Tommy Manotoc they are said to have abducted to show their objections, to charges of faking passports in order to travel in 1986 from exile in Hawaii to Morocco, to a warrant of arrest in the United States for refusing to appear during the trial of her mother in New York in 1990, to current pronouncements that the agreement of the Marcos family to pay off human rights victims does not constitute and admission of guilt, Imee has consistently been quoted at times out of context, at times verbatim, but always because of her distinct manner of putting things across. For although she inherited the brains of her father, she also acquired the flair of her equally famous mother.
At 43, Imee is one handsome woman, much more attractive today than when she was a younger, who then suffered in comparison with her pretty younger sister Irene. Notwithstanding her colorful life or perhaps precisely because of it, Imee appears to take things in stride. Nothing seems to faze her, obviously not the simple matter of not having brought any clothes with her to the pictorial or of having to put on her make-up by herself, a matter that would be a major issue with some cover girls we know.
"Baklang bakla pa rin," is how her gay friends would describe her affectionately. It is no secret that she has many gay friends and adopted the gay lingo that one would expect her, if she has not already, to take up their cause in one of the many bills she has filed in Congress.
But at the moment, her interest in issues involving agriculture certainly because her home province of Ilocos is 90% agriculture, the gender bills because she has seen many inequities in the existing laws, and the Magna Carta for Students which has failed to pass the 8th, 9th, and 10th readings but which she will continue to push for.
Although not an avowed feminist, again in the 'labeled' sense of the word, Imee finds herself often inputting the woman's perspective in many of the issues closely related to women. One of the gender bills she sponsored seeks to redefine the word "prostitute" which is used only on women, to also include men who engage in sex or lascivious conduct for a fee. Another seeks to correct the seeming disparity in the penalties for "marital infidelity" wherein the wife is meted a heavier penalty for a single act of infidelity in contrast to the extramarital indiscretions of the husband which are not considered felonious unless attended by certain qualifying circumstances.
A member of ten committees and vice-chairman in three, namely, Higher Education, Public Information, and Youth and Sports, Imee says her current hours in Congress-sometimes lasting until eight in the evening with much of the work spent in committee meetings-completely negates a normal social life. And on weekends, it is a motoring to Ilocos to meet with her constituents there and to conduct ocular inspections.
Imee looks forward to these weekend trips to Ilocos even if it means being away from her children whose privacy she jealously guards. "Life is so much easier in the province. I can relate with the provincial women's groups. I envy my brother Bongbong who has completely settled himself and his family in Ilocos," she tells us.
As a young girl, Imee made waves by showing her interest in theater, appearing in several stage productions. Upon her return to the Philippines, she continued her theatrical and literary bent by starting a TV production group, doing telesines, sometimes writing the script herself. She hopes to one day write a book on how it was growing up in Malacañang Palace. "It was completely bizarre," she confesses.
Meantime, her job in Congress remains the priority. She sees it as a six-year ceontract with herself to see what the current generation can do for the country. After some eight months of adjustments, Imee is now settled comfortably in her new environment. The fact that there are many young people with great ides now in Congress excites her and she laughingly takes back many of the cocky things she had said before.
"Congress is not so bad after all. There are a lot of former KBs (Kabataang Barangay which she headed in her youth) and former classmates from the UP College of Law. Certainly there are a lot of good people there now, a new wave of politicians, the Spice Boys. And by the way, the Mindanao Autonomous Region is no longer the Mindanao monotonous region."
Imee comes across as a no-non-sense unfussy person with definite opinions she willingly voices out. Her taste is immediately obviously impeccable. She is constantly inquiring, investigating. Even the small talk she engages in is interesting and illustrative of the way her mind works.
"I miss all my titas before," she complains to designer Barge Ramos who finally arrives with some clothes for the pictorial. "My Tita Elvira (Manahan), my Tita Chona (Kasten). They were all so crazy. Wala ng mga ganyan ngayong. Now, the women are all so pretty, but they are all in uniform," she wails.
And recalling a dear friend in theater who once trained the KB and who is now enjoying stints as an actor in international co-productions shot in the Philippines, "Alex is certainly the oldest starlet in captivity."
What are her beauty secrets, we probe. Apparently, they are habits she would not recommend to others. Sometimes, coming home tired out from a long day in Congress, "I don't even have the energy or the time to wash off my make-up."
What does
the woman of the New Millenium advise our women readers, we persist. "Shake
it up. This is your last chance before the end of the century. Make sure
you have time for yourself (again, advise she doesn't follow)."