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Thursday, November 27, 2003
Alcantara: Being Imeldific
By Joji Alcantara
Witerary
EVERY person has a parallel force or alter ego. If Miss Melanie Marquez has her own brand of English grammar, there are those who shoot off their mouth intellectually, but are actually incoherent in sense. Those who spout seeming words of wisdom that, in truth, doesn't really make sense at all.
This proliferates among politicians. However, some people are in a world of their own. Okay, maybe galaxy. One of my particular favorites, with sincere respect, is former First Lady Madame Imelda Marcos. Everything she says always makes you think with a smile and with gracious indulgence.
"It's the rich you can terrorize. The poor have nothing to lose." --
Fortune, 1979
"I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty." -- 1987
"I'm like Robin Hood. I rob the rich to make these projects come alive... not really rob. It's done with a smile." -- Fortune Magazine, 1979
"I get my fingers in all our pies. Before you know it, your little fingers including all your toes are in all the pies." -- October 1980
"If you know how rich you are, you are not rich. But me, I am not aware of the extent of my health. That's how rich we are." -- after promising to give $800 million to poor Filipinos if she becomes President (Inquirer, March 1998)
"I was born ostentatious. They will list my name in the dictionary someday. They will use 'Imeldific' to mean ostentatious extravagance." -- Associated Press report, April 1998
"The Philippines is in a strategic position. It is both East and West, right and left, rich and poor. We are neither here nor there." -- press conference, on why the Manila Film Festival should be held in Manila, February 1982
"Why should people be afraid that we use a few small pellets of uranium at the nuclear power plant in Bataan? Don't they know that we're surrounded by uranium? We have the world's fourth largest deposits of uranium. Yes, we're all radioactive -- must be the reason why we have so many faith healers!"
-- on nuclear-generated power, Feb. 1985
"Don't worry, if you ever sue us, I have a good lawyer. I have the President. Besides, really, if they sent me to prison, maybe that will be nice because for a change I'll really have peace. I will be alone and then I will have all my memories to enjoy myself for a while."
"Bakit mayroong mga Pilipino na naninira kay Presidente at kay First Lady? Hindi ba nila alam na kami ang Tatay at Nanay ng Bayang Pilipino? Kung kamote ang Tatay at kung kamote ang Nanay, kamote ang Pilipino! Ang kamote ay hindi nag-aanak ng kamatis." interview in San Jose, California, 1985
"God is love. I have loved. Therefore, I will go to heaven." -- to Pope Paul VI, who responded, "Oh, how wonderful, how childlike."
"I have only ever dreamt of a small house with a picket fence by the sea. But how can I stop what I am doing? It becomes a romance not only to a president and a husband but a romance of principles and commitment. A romance for humanity. This is perhaps what makes me so controversial. I am beyond logic and rationality. I have a different way of thinking. I think synergistically. I'm not linear in thinking, I'm not very logical."
"Win or lose, we go shopping after the election."
"To know Asia is to feel Asia. Asia must be felt with the heart in order to be understood."
"The problem with First Ladies is that you have to set the standard. My role is to be both star and slave."
"The truth is that, life is so beautiful and life is so prosperous and life is so full of potential and life as so much good in it that really, one should not have to sleep. I have no time to sleep. You only get bored if you are tired. And I only get bored and tired with ugliness, with negativism and evil and all of that. But as long as there's music, flowers, a nice person, a smile, a good deed...gosh! And at the end of the day, I start in the morning and I feel that we all have 1,000 energy. In my case, I see a beautiful flower, a beautiful program, a beautiful person, a beautiful smile, a beautiful child, by that time it's midnight. I'm just about ready to take off. I have a million energy, no longer 1,000. Everybody's falling apart and I cannot understand." -- on why she no longer sleeps, cited in "Imelda: A Story of the Philippines"
"I hate ugliness. You know I'm allergic to ugliness." -- Philippine Daily
Inquirer, Aug.1999
"Our opponent [Cory Aquino] does not put on any make up. She does not have her fingernails manicured. You know gays. They are for beauty. Filipinos who like beauty, love and God are for Marcos." - on why Ferdinand Marcos would win the gay vote, January 1986
"I understand my people better than anyone. I study them all the time and even conduct experiments." - December 1980
***
(more of Jojie's articles in www.witerary.com; react to witty@info.com.ph)
(November 27, 2003 issue)
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