IMELDA MARCOS, RIVERS of MAKE-UP & PNG

 

Marcos celebrated our independence

By LOFTY

When we celebrate independence each year, we tend to remember the people who made it happen.

Sir Michael Somare, Sir John Guise, Sir John Kerr, King Charles (then Prince Charles) and many more dignitaries.

But some of the people we forget include a beautiful Filipino woman who represented her powerful husband.

In the seventies and eighties, the Philipinnes was a powerhouse in the region.

Its head of state was the powerful president Ferdinand Marcos. His shadow was the ever present glamorous shoe collector first lady Imelda Marcos.

She was probably more pretty and more dolled up than any other first lady of her time.

And I suspect she was probably more powerful than her husband with her bizarre collection of shoes.

Time Magazine reported she had over 1000 pairs of footings.

Well, it seemed her husband had done some good deeds for PNG including sending teachers and doctors to PNG.

So when president could not visit PNG for its independence on September 16, 1975, first Lady Imee must have gone ballistic and given Ferdinand the full 9 yards.

Dubbed the 'Steel Butterfly', the iron maiden must have felt annoyed and betrayed that Ferd was ignoring the independence of a 'wantok' nation close to his sphere of infuence that he had so generously helped in the past.

So the feisty one hopped on her private jet with an entourage of bodyguards and personal assistants, pointed the nose of the plane to Port Moresby, and just like that, a royal pair of shoes landed late in the evening of September 15 in dusty Moresby.

In PNG, Julius Chan was a young politician and the country's first finance minister, and was a trusted lieutenant of father of the nation Michael Thomas Somare. He was the architect of the new country's first ever budget which he termed the 'Robin Hood' budget, which heavily taxed the rich to serve the poor.

Sir Julius Chan

Now 83, and a knight of the King's realm, Sir Julius remembers getting a call from the airport that a private jet had arrived.

On board was her royal shoeyness Imelda Marcos. 

"As I was sitting down to my usual cup of tea, ‘I was alerted very late at night that Imelda Marcos, the wife of the President of the Philippines, had arrived unexpectedly on her private jet with an entourage of about 30 people’, Sir Julius, recalled in an interview with the Post-Courier newspaper's chief political reporter Gorethy Kenneth.

Imelda Marcos should therefore be remembered and honoured as the only First Lady who came to PNG on behalf of her husband to celebrate our Independence Day on September 16, 1975.

Famous for her collection of shoes and her glamorous lifestyle, Mrs Marcos surprised all when she arrived unannounced at the Jackson’s airport on the evening of September 15, 1975.

Sir Julius Chan, who was in charge of overseeing the arrivals of VIPs, was bewildered as he had not expected the First Lady.

“I was told to smile at them. To make them welcome, happy, feel part of the celebrations.”

He recalls: “President Ferdinand Marcos facilitated all sorts of regional meetings and at my request, sent us a team of Filipino doctors, who eventually became a very important part of the medical network in rural Papua New Guinea.

Filipino teachers were to follow later as part of the PNG government's plan to fill up the vacuum left by departing Australians.

“I think it was because of this relationship that Imelda made the last-minute decision to come to our Independence Day celebrations. 

"Imelda’s group was hastily accommodated somewhere in the city and fortunately someone was there to receive her.

“Included in her entourage was something I had not really seen before – a team of about five or six personal beauty assistants.

“I do not know what people expected at Independence – a fully air-conditioned stadium perhaps but instead we were all sitting in the stands of the open-air Sir Hubert Murray Stadium on a really hot day and I had to sit on a bench behind Imelda Marcos.

“I could not help but notice that as it got hotter she started to sweat and her make-up began to run down her back. 

"It appeared she was undergoing some kind of heat torture.

“I had personally met her husband, President Ferdinand Marcos, in 1972 as a result of a regional meeting at the Asian Development Bank in Manila,” Sir Julius recalled.

“The Philippines was one of the top countries in Asia at that time, having been independent since 1946. 

"It was strategically very important in terms of world power because of its relationship with the United States during the war and, as we were an emerging nation in the region, the Philippines wanted to be a good partner to us.

“The Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary performed at the event, as did a number of traditional dancers. It was incredibly colourful spectacle.”

The dignitaries thoroughly enjoyed it as did our people.

Am sure Mrs Marcos had a lot of fond memories to tell president Marcos.

And that is how the famous Mrs Marcos, loved the world over for her grandiose extravagant lifestyle, was humbled by the Papuan sun.

Footnote 

The Marcoses ruled the Philipinnes from 1965 to 1986 when they were ousted by a popular filipino uprising dramatised in the movie 'Maid in Malacanang.'

The Americans offered them a safe haven in Hawaii where Mr Marcos passed away.

Mrs Imelda Marcos later returned to the Philippines where she successfully ran for congress and won seats in two different electorates in 2 different elections.

Her son Ferdinand Junior also ran for president.

Papua New Guinea hosts a large Filipino community that contributes to the economy through business, arts and culture, training, health and education.