Watch Me Entertain Myself!

Sacha Guitry once said, "You can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty." Oh yes, I'm the great pretender.
(pilot episode: 20 January 2004)

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Before We Celebrate EDSA

Before the kids of today ask, “Why are you so against the Marcoses? Haven’t they gone through enough as a family?” I submit here Exhibit A, thanks to HotManila.ph who enumerated the loot that the Marcoses brought with them from Malacañang to the United States when they fled the country in 1986. For years there were whispers of the Marcoses “hidden wealth,” but thanks to the US Customs inspection, part of the hidden wealth was exposed.

There is also a list of the things they left behind in Malacañang, including “2,142 pieces of jewelry, 508 gowns, 427 dresses, 71 pairs of sunglasses and those by now immortal shoes of Imelda, 1,060 pairs of them.”

For a time they claimed that those were personal belongings acquired through the years. Imelda’s poor beginnings are well-documented; in fact, David Byrne released a musical about it. Ferdinand didn’t come from the upper crust of society either; in fact, he would frequently use that to distinguish himself from his chief political rival, Ninoy Aquino. So tell me, how can two Philippine public officials, even if they were the president (Ferdinand) and the governor of Metro Manila (Imelda), amass “22 boxes of pesos valued (then) at $1.4 million, a gold crown studded with diamonds, 60 pearl necklaces with enough pearls to cover an area 12 feet by four feet, and several gold bars”?

Inventoried along with the ill-gotten wealth are documents that allow us a partial glimpse of just how corrupt the Marcoses were when they were in power.

My god. The gall of this family.

1 comment:

Felipe said...

Filipinos are forgetful and/or forgiving. Which really sucks. Dapat nanyari sa mga marcos yung nanyari kay Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife sa Romania when the people revolted instead of letting them fly to the US. Pinatay sila.