Imelda Marcos

Imelda Marcos (born July 2, 1929, Manila, Philippines) is a public figure in the Philippines who wielded great power during the 20-year rule of her husband, Pres. Ferdinand Marcos.

The woman who would become known as the “Steel Butterfly” for her combination of fashion sense and political resolve was born Imelda Romuáldez. Her mother died when she was eight years old, and her father, saddled with a failing law practice and mounting expenses, soon relocated the family from Manila to Tacloban. She was dubbed the “Rose of Tacloban” as the winner of a local beauty contest in 1949, and she graduated from Tacloban’s St. Paul’s College with a degree in education in 1952. That year she returned to a Manila that was buzzing with post-World War II construction, a city greatly changed from the city she had known as a child. Romuáldez caught the eye of many among Manila’s business and political elites, including the mayor, who in 1953 declared her the “Muse of Manila,” resulting in her picture appearing frequently in newspapers and magazines thereafter.

In April 1954 she met Ferdinand Marcos, then a 36-year-old congressman who had already earned a reputation as an ambitious and media-savvy politician. The couple married after a whirlwind two-week courtship. Over the next decade Ferdinand and Imelda established themselves as one of the premier political couples in the Philippines. During that time Imelda gave birth to three children: daughter Imee (1955), son Ferdinand, Jr. (nicknamed “Bongbong”; 1957), and daughter Irene (1960).

In 1965 Marcos was elected president of the Philippines, and Imelda proved to be an invaluable asset. Her glamour initially had broad appeal, and she oversaw numerous beautification projects in Manila. The declaration of martial law during Marcos’s second presidential term, however, signaled a change in the domestic political climate. Although Imelda remained an asset abroad, opposition politicians characterized her as a drain on the national treasury and a proponent of nepotism during her appointments as governor of Metropolitan Manila (1975–86) and minister of human settlements and ecology (1979–86).

Chief among her critics was Benigno Aquino, Jr., whose opposition to the excesses of the Marcos regime led to his imprisonment and later exile to the United States. Imelda, who had briefly dated Aquino before she met Marcos, warned him of threats against his life should he return to the Philippines. Accepting the risk, Aquino flew back to Manila in 1983, but he was assassinated by government forces moments after stepping off the airplane.

Marcos called for elections in 1986, and popular opposition coalesced around Aquino’s widow, Corazon. Although Marcos claimed victory, evidence of massive voting fraud emerged, and the military withdrew its support for the embattled president. The Marcos family fled to Hawaii on February 25, 1986, leaving behind, among other things, Imelda’s massive shoe collection—a virtual shrine to excess that came to embody the corruption of the Marcos regime.

After weathering the death of her husband in 1989 and a succession of graft and embezzlement charges from prosecutors in the United States and the Philippines, Imelda Marcos staged an unlikely comeback. She returned to the Philippines in 1991 and unsuccessfully campaigned for president before winning two congressional terms (1995–98) as a representative for a constituency on Leyte. Her legal issues continued, however, and she was convicted on corruption charges in 1993 (the ruling was overturned by the Philippine Supreme Court in 1998). She subsequently was acquitted of other corruption charges in 2007 and 2008.

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Imelda Marcos also acted as the matriarch of a burgeoning political dynasty, with children Imee and Bongbong serving in various offices and her fashion-model grandson, Martin (“Borgy”) Manotoc, staging a run for the Manila mayor’s office. In May 2010, at age 80, she successfully campaigned for and won a congressional seat representing the Ilocos Norte constituency, her late husband’s home province. She won a second term for that district in 2013.