KITCHEN CABINET STORIES
Imelda Marcos’ Blue Ladies, as in a circle of circles, occupied various tiers or levels of ranking. One way to name who’s who in the circle would be to enumerate those who were there ahead of anyone else. Some names would crop up. For want of a better word, Mrs. Marcos would refer to them as her bosom friends, in the same vein the international press described Christina Vitorre Ford as Imelda’s bosom friend ---- someone Ma’am first met and offered to share her airconditioned tent with in the arid vastness of Persepolis when they both attended the bash of the last century, a celebration of the 2000 years of the Peacock throne. That was around 1971, when Imelda was probably 42.
Not necessarily the first among equals is Lulu Hidalgo Tinio, descendant of Jose Rizal, and daughter of Dona Orang, one of the favorite customers of Don Ramoning and a regular member of his mahjong set, too. She is the mother-in-law of a Madrigal scion, the son of Pinang, the quietest of the daughters of Don Vicente and the handsomest of his sons-in-law, Paquito Bayot, the proof of his good looks his having been Conchita Sunico’s best known escort when she was a Carnival Queen.
Much may also be said of the Fernandez sisters whose ancestral house stood at the back of the Marcos home in San Juan. First was Eloy, who was then Mrs. Rivilla, as in Ormoc sugar, at the time she was playing badminton in the Marcos garden in Ortega. Like her sisters, she had welcomed the Ilocano congressman’s young, innocent and bewildered wife. (Eloy would later become Mrs. Yan, having been widowed and remarried, this time to a general during the Marcos years.) Then, there was Zita Fernandez Feliciano whom Rupert Jacinto would photograph for his first one-man show in her Blue-blue days and described in terms that would make any hot-blooded male with mammary fixation drool. And finally, there was Nitang Lim, who was one of the sisterly trio known as the witches who fiercely defended their brother Jobo from all kinds of words spoken against him.
Someone very close to Lulu Tinio, their parents having been friends, also made it to the magic circle. She lived in Pasay, her family being one of its oldest residents, her mother a classmate of Dona Josefa in the Philippine Normal School, and her father, one of the original Physical education coaches and instructors in pre-war Philippines. No wonder that she also played badminton with the Marcoses, not getting a hint that, through this badminton connection, she would in time be going back to Malacañang. (To be continued)