Son of the Iron Butterfly
CARMEN Pedrosa’s “Imelda Marcos: Rise and Fall of One of the World’s Most Powerful Women” tells us of several factors responsible for Mrs. Marcos’ “Iron Butterfly” persona. Young Imelda was burdened by her father’s lack of relative success vis-à-vis the Romualdez brothers of Leyte and her mother’s nondescript (socioeconomic) background, leading to humiliations suffered at the hands of their more affluent relatives early on. She realized at the outset that access to wealth and power through her husband’s political career covered her torturous past.
Mrs. Marcos repeatedly proved how valuable she was, personally, to her husband’s rise to power. Infidelity on the part of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. — especially the scandalous radio broadcast of his dalliances with Hollywood actress Dovie Beams — gave Imelda further leverage to pursue her own “Iron Butterfly” agenda, more and more as co-dictator after the declaration of martial law in 1972.
The Iron Butterfly had a tremendous imprint on domestic politics, as seen in her supposed role — according to whistleblower Eduardo Quintero — in the bribery attempt of the 1971 Constitutional Convention delegates. Imelda’s “edifice complex,” or propensity for extravagant building projects such as the Cultural Center, the Population Center, Nutrition Center, Heart Center, National Arts Center, Folk Arts Theater, Convention Center, among others, showcased her considerable power within the dictatorship. Gerard Lico explains Imelda’s edifice complex as “an obsession and compulsion to build edifices as a hallmark of greatness or as a signifier of national prosperity.”
Imelda’s appointment as governor of Metro Manila, head of the Human Settlements portfolio and her (dubious) election to the Interim Batasang Pambansa as representative for Metro Manila from 1978 to 1984 further cemented her role as codictator with her husband until the EDSA uprising of 1986.
Yet it seems that the Iron Butterfly most enjoyed her unofficial role as the dictatorship’s top diplomat. She told a group of women journalists: “I don’t think at this point, and this is a little immodest but it is true — there is probably no First Lady, not even a head of state in any part of the world who has been to all the corridors of power, has been a friend to all the major superpowers like the First Lady. I can go to Li Xianian (chairman of China’s People’s Consultative Committee), Hu Yaobang, Deng Hsiao Ping (chairman of the Communist Party of China), Chernenko (Soviet Union), Ghadafi (Libya), Fahd, anybody. I can go to any one of them. And all I have to do is, if I see that the country is in trouble, I’ll get my little bag and say: ‘Huwag naman (Please don’t).’ And I don’t need to be president.”
An eternity spent in the corridors of power as co-dictator probably induced Imelda to conjure up images of their family’s pseudoroyalty status in the Philippines. At the height of the dictatorship, Imelda tapped royalty painter Ralph Wolfe Cowan to commission portraits of the Marcos family, according to Cowan’s Weebly account, presumably for imeldific pseudo-royalty pretensions. Pedrosa depicts the Iron Butterfly as a desperate social climber who spent scandalous amounts of money — presumably from the public coffers — just to hobnob with the international jet set crowd. She even pushed daughter Maria Imelda Josefa “Imee” Marcos, now a senator, clumsily into the international royalty social circles.
According to Pedrosa: “Not satisfied with being merely an occasional guest at the parties of the Beautiful People as First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda expected Imee to solidify her social position through a successful marriage, either to an industrial fortune like Agnelli of Fiat or to a member of European royalty, such as Prince Charles … Imee would have unlimited money and power as well as Imelda’s prowess behind her. The only thing she lacked was physical beauty. Although she said she loved her daughter dearly, Imelda fretted to friends that she could not understand why Imee had not inherited her good looks.”
If anybody is searching to understand the perplexing act of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. of taking a helicopter to watch a rock concert he farcically described as “unmissable,” it is certainly a consequence of the Iron Butterfly’s desperate delusions that her family is (pseudo) Philippine royalty. Son Bongbong seems to have wholeheartedly swallowed the Iron Butterfly’s machinations and hallucinations, especially after his now-tragic alliance with then-Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte calamitously gifted him with 31 million votes in the 2022 presidential elections.
The redemption of the Marcos name narrative has been all but cast aside as Bongbong now unashamedly and gaudily tracks his hedonist pursuits as if there is no tomorrow or that he has no democratic constituency to answer to.
It would amuse me no end if at some point Sass Rogando Sasot’s references to France’s Louis 16th and Marie Antoinette become prophetic.
When is the next Formula 1 race again?
To be continued next Friday, Feb. 2, 2024