Stories by Mike Comerford
Photographs by Mark Welsh
Daily Herald Staff
Fourth of five parts

Former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos sings from a 1940s song book at a gathering with her former high school classmates meant to honor the 1944 landing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Allied troops at nearby Red Beach on Leyte island.

TACLOBAN, Philippines - Wearing - what else? -flashy shoes, singing "God Bless the Philippines" and dancing to Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff," a finely coifed, 75-year-old Imelda Marcos is among friends on her native island, Leyte.

She's visiting with high school girlfriends at Alejandro's Hotel. They're in town for the 60th anniversary of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's return to the Philippines during World War II.

The day before the commemoration, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., she sits talking, singing and eating in the hotel's tiny cafe.

The hotel owners, the Montejo family, make sure she's well-attended. She and her husband, former President Ferdinand Marcos, were exiled in 1986. Yet, here, she's referred to as "Ma'am" and treated like a celebrity.

Later in the evening, she'll be disco-dancing with younger men at a commemoration dance.

In the morning, she'll be sitting with other dignitaries commemorating the Leyte Landing, along with political foe Gloria Arroyo, current Philippines president.

Once dubbed "The Iron Butterfly," Imelda Marcos often turns conversation to the "Marcos era" of the '60s, '70s and '80s. It was a turbulent time, when she and her husband ruled the Philippines for more than 20 years, nine of them under martial law.

"All the people are saying we are thieves," she says, immaculately clad in an emerald green dress, earrings, ring and purse.

And then there are the shoes. Today, she wears an open-toed, low-heeled, emerald color-coordinated pair from the shoemaking capital of the Philippines, Marikina City in metro Manila.

The former Philippine first lady likely is best known worldwide for her hoard of shoes. Estimates of her collection range 500 to 3,400 pairs. Hundreds were found in the presidential palace after she and her husband were forced to flee. Her shoe collection became a symbol of excess in a poverty-stricken country.

When the couple was accused of stealing billions of dollars from government coffers, the legal battles ensued. But Imelda Marcos never has served a day in jail.

"I always say, 'People looked for skeletons in my closet, but all they found were shoes,' " she says.

"The truth is, we did not steal and his (World War II) medals are real," she says, as she brings out a massive 800-plus-page book, "Let the Marcos Truth Prevail." She says the book debunks the accusations against the couple.

Imelda returned from exile after her husband's death. These days, she has a daughter in the Philippine congress, a son who is a provincial governor and a brother, Alfredo "Bejo" T. Romualdez, who is mayor of Tacloban City.

Like Vladimir Lenin's former tomb, Ferdinand Marcos' body lies in a glass coffin inside a refrigerated room in Marcos' home province of Luzon. His family refuses to bury him until he is allowed full military honors at his interment.

That could be a long time coming. Opponents dispute the extent of Marcos' participation in the World War II resistance in the Philippines.

Marcos also bristles at the accusation she or her husband had anything to do with the assassination of opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. as he exited an airplane returning from political exile in 1983.

Aquino became a martyr for the opposition and, eventually, his wife, Corazon Aquino, was swept to presidential power following massive street demonstrations in 1986.

Imelda Marcos shows a sample pair from her infamous shoe collection. After former President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, were exiled in 1986, hundreds of pairs of shoes found in her closet suggested she led an extravagant lifestyle in a country marked by poverty.

"Marcos said, 'If I wanted him dead, I wouldn't have sent him abroad,'" Imelda says, referring to her late husband by his last name. "He would have died naturally. ... Anyway, they found a truckload of dead bodies on his farm once."

Imelda Marcos' accusation about "dead bodies," — like some of her other stories — strains credibility.

She tells how, as a teenage beauty queen, she coaxed the visiting American songwriter Irving Berlin into writing a song about the Philippines.

She tells another about the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead, aviator Charles Lindbergh and herself witnessing a Tasaday wedding on the island of Mindanao.

When confronted with arguments the story of the Stone Age tribe was a Marcos government hoax to generate tourism, she heedlessly continues to recount her conversation with Lindbergh, whom she says was captivated by the wedding ceremony.

"Lindbergh said, 'It is not what we have given to civilization, it is what we have lost,'" she says.

She says she still meets "heads of state," sometimes at The Waldorf-Astoria when she's in New York City. Before the war in Iraq, she publicly offered to meet with Saddam Hussein to reason with him. Marcos says she established a rapport with him during a state visit years ago.

And although she denies major charges of corruption during the Marcos era, she doesn't say she never witnessed it.

"I will not say that completely," Marcos says.

Although she remains a controversial figure in the Philippines, she is much more than a remnant of the past.

Critics of the Arroyo administration have suggested a Marcos-like strongman might be just what the shaky Philippine economy needs.

As she greets guests and signs autographs for those staying at Alejandro's Hotel, she continues talking about the salad days of the Marcos era.

"The legacy of Marcos is freedom, justice and democracy, all based on natural law," she says. "I miss him. He's now with me more than ever. I always have to ask myself, 'If Marcos were around, what would he do?'"

IN PART 4:
• So many died
• The shoes that keep on walking
• Burnham's vision links Chicago with Philippines
• More photos from part 4