86 Facts About Imelda Marcos

1.

Imelda Romualdez Marcos is a Filipino politician who served as the First Lady of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986, wielding significant political power during the presidency of her husband, 10th president Ferdinand Marcos.

2.

Imelda Marcos is the mother of current president Bongbong Marcos.

3.

Imelda Marcos was elected four times to the House of Representatives of the Philippines, and ran twice for the presidency of the Philippines but failed to garner enough votes.

4.

Imelda Marcos Remedios Visitacion Romualdez was born at dawn in San Miguel, Manila, on July 2,1929.

5.

Imelda Marcos's parents were Vicente Orestes Romualdez, a lawyer, and his second wife, Remedios Trinidad.

6.

Imelda Marcos is the sixth of Vicente's eleven children, and Remedios' firstborn.

7.

Imelda Marcos was baptized in the nearby San Miguel Church on the day after her birth.

8.

Around 1932, the financial conditions of Imelda Marcos's family began to decline.

9.

Imelda Marcos's parents were separated for a time, during which Remedios worked for the nuns at the Asilo de San Vicente de Paul.

10.

Vicente and Remedios eventually reconciled but to avoid further conflict, she and her children, including Imelda Marcos, moved to their house's garage.

11.

Imelda Marcos grew up learning the Waray language, and then learned the Tagalog language and eventually English.

12.

Imelda Marcos finished grade one in the nearby College of the Holy Spirit Manila, where her older half-sisters studied.

13.

Imelda Marcos continued her early studies at Holy Infant Academy, a convent school run by Order of Saint Benedict.

14.

At school, Imelda Marcos had to face her family's humiliating poverty, and she was frequently among the students who had to apologize for late payments.

15.

In 1942, the Romualdezes returned to Tacloban, and around that time, Imelda Marcos's father refused to let her go back to school.

16.

Imelda Marcos finished her first year at the provincial high school where she was chosen Miss I-A; then in her second year, she moved to Holy Infant and stayed there until she graduated.

17.

Imelda Marcos continued her higher studies at Holy Infant Academy from 1938 to 1948, the year she graduated from high school.

18.

Imelda Marcos was put up as candidate for the Department of Education, which had an enrollment of 800 students.

19.

Imelda Marcos had won a scholarship to study music at the Philippine Women's University under Adoracion Reyes, a close friend of the family.

20.

Imelda Marcos briefly held a job at a music store but left this for a better one at the Central Bank.

21.

Imelda Marcos returned to Manila in 1952 under the rule of President Elpidio Quirino and stayed in the house of her relative, House of Representatives of the Philippines Speaker Pro tempore Daniel Romualdez, who had three adopted children.

22.

Imelda Marcos later sang three songs at a performance with her cousin Loreto at Holy Ghost College.

23.

Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos met on April 6,1954, during a budget hearing at the Philippine Congress.

24.

Ferdinand was part of the opposition team who led the argument against the budget, while Imelda Marcos was there to visit her cousin Daniel, who was the Speaker of the House.

25.

Marcos heavily relied on Imelda, eventually telling the press at one point that it was Imelda who had delivered the one million vote margin he needed to win the election.

26.

Imelda had assumed a managerial position in her husband's campaign early on, when Marcos faced his first challenge of the campaign, which was to win the presidential candidacy for the Nacionalista Party.

27.

Imelda Marcos enthusiastically ran a detailed campaign, befriending the 1,347 delegates of the Nacionalista Party Convention until Ferdinand Marcos won the party's presidential nomination on November 21,1964, for the Nacionalista Party.

28.

McCoy recounts that it was supposedly Imelda who convinced Fernando Lopez to accept the vice-presidential nomination alongside Marcos.

29.

Imelda Marcos met Lopez personally, appealing to him by recounting the many struggles she and Ferdinand faced during the campaign.

30.

Lopez refused to give in multiple times, until Imelda Marcos cried in front of him.

31.

When he relented, Imelda Marcos proceeded to hand a document to sign, stating that he had accepted the nomination as the Nacionalista vice-presidential candidate.

32.

Imelda Marcos used her voice to appeal to voters, singing during campaigns.

33.

Imelda Marcos's songs were usually varieties of local folk songs.

34.

Ferdinand Imelda Marcos was elected as the 10th president of the Philippines on November 9,1965.

35.

When he was inaugurated on December 30,1965, Imelda Marcos officially became the First Lady.

36.

Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos held mass in the courtyard of their house on Ortega Street before proceeding to Luneta Park for the inauguration ceremonies.

37.

In May 1966, Imelda Marcos pushed a twelve million peso plan to pool together the social welfare efforts of several dozen social welfare groups.

38.

In mid-1967, Imelda Marcos started the "Share for Progress" Seed Dispersal Program a project that suggested making vegetable gardens out of idle lots all over the country.

39.

President Imelda Marcos had met the American actress after she arrived in Manila in 1968 to play the female lead in "Maharlika," a propaganda film portraying Ferdinand's supposed exploits during World War II.

40.

Universe pageant was held in Manila, to which then First Lady Imelda Marcos allegedly spent for the renovation of all public and private infrastructures throughout Manila, and the other cities in which the Ms.

41.

In 1971, Imelda Marcos attended Iran's 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire of the founding of the Persian Empire.

42.

Imelda Marcos arrived at the party, allegedly rambling about democracy and how only the Americans could afford it.

43.

Imelda Marcos secured the Miss Universe 1974 pageant in Manila, which required the construction of the Folk Arts Theater in less than three months.

44.

Imelda Marcos organized the Kasaysayan ng Lahi, a festival showcasing Philippine history.

45.

Imelda Marcos initiated social programs, such as the Green Revolution, which was intended to address hunger by encouraging the people to plant produce in household gardens, and created a national family-planning program.

46.

An assassination attempt against Imelda Marcos occurred on December 7,1972, when an assailant tried to stab her with a bolo knife but was shot by the police.

47.

In 1972, Imelda Marcos initiated the first of many trips to the Soviet Union; it was dubbed as "cultural missions" but eventually led to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the Philippines.

48.

In 1975, after the assassination of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Imelda Marcos wanted to extend the official condolences.

49.

Imelda Marcos traveled to Iraq to secure oil and to Libya for a peace treaty with the Moro National Liberation Front.

50.

Six months after martial law was lifted on January 17,1981, Ferdinand Imelda Marcos was re-elected as president.

51.

The couple later emerged on the Palace balcony in front of a loyalist crowd and Imelda Marcos sang a song for the crowd.

52.

Later that day, Ferdinand Imelda Marcos finally agreed to step down and was given safe passage for him and his entire family to flee to Hawaii, United States.

53.

Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos moved into a pair of residences in Makiki Heights, Honolulu, a month later.

54.

The US government documented that the Imelda Marcos family entered the United States with millions of dollars in cash, stocks, jewelry, and gold kilobars inscribed "To my husband on our 24th anniversary".

55.

In 1992, Imelda Marcos ran for president in the 1992 Philippine presidential election, finishing 5th out of 7 candidates.

56.

Imelda Marcos was elected as a congresswoman of Leyte during the 1995 Philippine general election, representing the first district, despite facing a disqualification lawsuit in which the Supreme Court ruled in her favor.

57.

Imelda Marcos sought the presidency again in the 1998 Philippine presidential election, but later withdrew to support the eventual winner Joseph Estrada while she finished 9th among 11 candidates.

58.

Imelda Marcos considered running for mayor of Manila in the 2001 Philippine general election but did not push through with it.

59.

In November 2006, Marcos started her own business, a fashion label "Imelda Collection" including jewelry, clothing and shoes with the help of her daughter Imee Marcos.

60.

Imelda Marcos ran for the second district of Ilocos Norte in the 2010 Philippine House of Representatives elections to replace her son, Ferdinand Jr.

61.

Imelda Marcos was re-elected on May 14,2013, and on May 9,2016, for a third and final term.

62.

In October 2018, Imelda Marcos filed her certificate of candidacy to run for governor of Ilocos Norte in the 2019 Philippine general election to replace her daughter, Imee, who ran for senator.

63.

Imelda Marcos has been involved in court cases against her in the Philippines and abroad.

64.

Imelda Marcos pleaded not guilty to federal charges that she used $103 million in stolen government funds to buy Manhattan real estate and art.

65.

In October 2015, Imelda Marcos still faced 10 criminal charges of graft and 25 civil cases in the Philippines.

66.

In 1991, Imelda Marcos was indicted on ten corruption charges in the Philippines' anti-graft court, the Sandiganbayan.

67.

On November 12,2018, Imelda Marcos's attorney filed a "Motion for Leave of Court to Avail of Post-Conviction Remedies", which included a provision for bail.

68.

Imelda Marcos posted bail on November 16,2018, a week after her conviction.

69.

The Philippine Supreme Court considers the unexplained wealth of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos to be "ill-gotten" based on the definitions set forth in Republic Act 1379, which was passed in 1955.

70.

Imelda Marcos suggested that the figure could be as much as $30 billion.

71.

On one occasion, Imelda Marcos spent $2,000 on chewing gum at the San Francisco International Airport and, on another, forced a plane to do a U-turn mid-air because she had forgotten to buy cheese in Rome.

72.

Imelda Marcos declined to buy the Empire State Building because she felt it was "too ostentatious".

73.

Imelda Marcos's property used to include a 175-piece art collection, which included works by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Canaletto, Raphael, as well as Monet's L'Eglise et La Seine a Vetheuil, Alfred Sisley's Langland Bay, and Albert Marquet's Le Cypres de Djenan Sidi Said.

74.

In 2012, Imelda Marcos declared her net worth to be million and was likewise listed as the second-richest Filipino politician behind boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao.

75.

Imelda Marcos has claimed without evidence that her fortune came from Ferdinand Marcos's discovery of Yamashita's gold, a semi-mythical treasure trove that is widely believed in the Philippines to be part of the Japanese loot in World War II.

76.

Imelda Marcos's building projects were often of the Brutalist architectural style characterized by fortress-like, massive shapes intended to effect a sense of grandiosity.

77.

In 1966, Ferdinand Imelda Marcos issued Executive Order No 60, establishing the Cultural Center of the Philippines and appointing its board of directors.

78.

Imelda Marcos called the CCP Complex the "sanctuary of the Filipino soul," as it became the locus of all state-initiated cultural productions.

79.

Well, at least Mrs Imelda Marcos has made a significant contribution to our lexicon.

80.

Imelda Marcos influenced fashion in the Philippines, although her role as a patroness of the arts and fashion is still controversial.

81.

Imelda Marcos made a conscious effort to portray herself as a patron of the arts, including those who specialize in Filipino haute couture such as Pitoy Moreno and Inno Sotto.

82.

Imelda Marcos had its world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and its North American premiere in the documentary competition of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Excellence in Cinematography Award Documentary.

83.

Imelda Marcos obtained a temporary injunction that prevented the film from being shown in the Philippines for a brief time.

84.

In Manila, local performance artist Carlos Celdran became known for his Living La Vida Imelda Marcos walking tour, which was performed in Dubai in 2012.

85.

Imelda Marcos is frequently mentioned in the following Netflix shows like Russian Doll, The Crown and Dynasty.

86.

The title is a direct reference to a phrase Imelda Marcos mentioned she wanted written on her tombstone.