I can't wait to see Imelda. Despite everything people hate or love about her, despite her shoe fetish that I have a soft spot for, she makes for one of the most interesting characters in Philippine political history and current events. Her mind works in an amazingly strange way. When I used to see broadcasts of interviews with her while I lived in Manila, I seriously thought that she had no idea of what wrong she'd done. She seemed simply oblivious to the fact that the money she used to buy her three thousand pairs of shoes or her vats of parfum did not belong to her. She truly believed that she had not wronged anyone, much less The Filipino People. Maybe she hadn't. Not in her own mind.
I've met the woman twice in my life. The first time, was in 1981. She staged a grand visit to Kenya, among many other state visits. I resented the fact that I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning so I could get into costume and get to the Nairobi airport with the rest of the Filipino Community to welcome her. But that all changed as she grandly appeared out of the doorway and down the stairway of her airplane. On the asphalt, several of us young girls and women, dressed in kimonas (embroidered national costume blouse), in unison, did a welcome dance with arches of flowers and decorated bilaos (round woven tray used for cleaning rice or serving food) that spelled out "WELCOME". A local TV crew jostled with the local Filipinos in greeting her. Later, we ushered her and her crew of beautiful ladies into a luxurious airport lounge where an interview was conducted and a presentation from the entire community ensued. My parents and I, along with the entire Filipino Community present sang Bayan Ko. It brought tears to her eyes, and I believed her. They seemed genuine tears of joy, of the feeling of acceptance, of love. What did we expatriates know of her and her husband's treachery, corruption, violence, greed? Or maybe we knew of it, but we did not see it at that moment. We were blinded by her tears before our eyes and we simply welcomed another countrywoman in a foriegn land in the calm before the political storm that swept through our land in a flash of yellow ticker tape and t-shirts. We were only too glad to be warm and welcoming to someone of the same ethnicity. We did not care for politics, for tempestous times when we ourselves were comfortable in our foriegn homes, oblivious to the rising discontent back at home. We had forgotten that the reason most of us were there in the first place was to escape. She came and shook all our hands and thanked us profusely and told us that she loved us, like we were her errant children.
The second time I met Imelda was after the great upheavel of the tanks in the streets and flowers in the barrels of guns. It was 1995, and I was in the ladies room of the Hilton Hotel in Makati. I was getting ready to meet a friend and go for a job interview. I was in front of the mirror making sure that the bus trip hadn't completely disheveled my appearance. An agent walked in and seemed to do a routine check. Seconds later, Imeldific even in entering a restroom, the lady with the famous coiffure floated in. She didn't walk in, she floated in with a breeze of a silk scarf and some imperious perfume. She was tall and stately, looked as she always has, and she gave me the broadest smile and said "Hello!" in the friendliest manner. And I, smiled back with my own weak, "Hello" and stood stock still for a beat, unable to react. She entered a stall as her security and entourage stood around waiting, eyeing my every move. I finished up and left the bathroom, my mind racing. I thought of the millions of suffering Filipinos, the former tortured political prisoners I'd met; then, I wanted to tell her that I had met her years ago, that I even danced for her on airport tarmac in a distant, neutral place called Africa. I wanted to talk to her and see what she was really like. Even if she was on trial for being a thief and tyrant, I just wanted to exchange words and know her through my own mind. But the moment passed and it was getting late, and I had to get to the job interview.
8:00 AM | |
