By Andrew Leavold
At the end of the hour-long conversation I slipped in the topic of Weng Weng. She looked at me, eyebrows arched and slightly taken aback. I must have broken the tape loop.
“What do you remember about Weng Weng?”
“The….midget?”
“Yes. Do you remember him visiting you at Malacanang Palace?”
Imelda kicked into diplomatic mode. “I do remember him very well, because he was funny. He made us laugh, he made us happy, he entertained us, and he was nice, and he was helpful, and he was everything that was positive despite of the fact of his disability. He was distorted, a dwarf, but he would make us laugh and make us happy. What a talent – to have almost nothing, and then to make people happy. I salute each and every one of them who make people happy, especially when they are so deprived.”
I couldn’t help but imagine Weng Weng dressed as a medieval court jester, bells jingling on his pointed hat as he danced for the Royal Couple.
“The appearance of Weng Weng showed the great Filipino spirit, that they can make a hero out of a disabled, distorted guy. So, everybody had a chance. They had such a democratic attitude. The Filipinos have no prejudices.”
“Someone also suggested he was the embodiment of the Santo Nino,” I offered, harking back to Imee’s quote, “that there was something otherworldly about him. Would you agree with that?”
“I will not agree with that,” replied Imelda curtly, “but anyway, the fact that he was so small, that is a similarity to that. But maybe the spirit of Godliness, of what is positive, was with Weng Weng, so perhaps. But I will not go that far with the similarity with our spiritual God to a disabled boy. Sometimes imagination…and as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I feel there are limits to all of this, but he was fun, he gave a lot of happiness and joy and laughter to everyone, despite of the fact he had so much disability. He was not even typical…his arms and feet were so proportional, and everything…he could mean so much to everyone. For those with so little, to give so much, I surely admired him and loved him for that.”
I remember thinking what an extraordinary soliloquy to come from Madame Imelda herself. And for the record, I never asked her once about her shoes. When you’re granted an opportunity to confront a flesh-and-blood version of a myth, why would you buy into the caricature or the cliché?
She then invited us to eat cake on her veranda while she changed outfits. Just then a covers band’s opening bars of ‘Africa’ by Toto drifted across the canal from the covered sports centre. The song haunts me every trip to Manila, and here in Batac, Dani and I spluttered crumbs at the ironic setting. Imelda’s 83rd had truly begun. “Let me go first to this reception first tonight,” she ordered. “They’re celebrating my birthday. And you can go join us in the reception there.”
Security escorted the five of us plus driver Cel (“You’re coming to dinner with us!”) through the entrance of Batac’s covered sports centre. A nice quiet table up the back, we figured. We figured WRONG. We continued past table after table of local dignitaries, politicians, mayors, bankers, grand old dames, the Toto cover, the basketball hoop covered in a blow-up of Imelda from the Fifties, and – to our astonishment – into the VIP section, one table away from the Marcos family. Imelda made a grand entrance an hour later to a standing ovation – the emcee declared her “the most BEAUTIFUL woman in the world, our Mother Imelda!” – then posed at our table for some priceless photos, and introduced us to Imee’s children and a table of Chinese bankers as “the Press”. Cel tucked into the table of Chinese-inspired dishes, and gave a thumbs-up to a fellow jeepney driver seated on the bleachers set up for Batac’s poor along the side of the sports centre. The rest of us ate, sweated, downed one Lipton ice tea after another, and wondered when we were going to be escorted from the building as frauds. Press? Pressed between two tanks, more likely…
And then the festivities began. The live band was joined by line-dancing hoochie mamas in halter tops grinding away while the political elite of Ilocos Note boogied under the giant Imelda on the basketball court. Imelda herself joined crooner Anthony Castelo for a number or two, and made a long speech filled with references to her new Mothering Centres surrounding Batac to rapturous applause. Then came the spectacular dance numbers – with performing pasties, fresh from the previous month’s Empanada Festival. That’s right, dancing pasties. Jesus Crust Superstar. At some point my head exploded.
At the end of the evening came the most bizarre moment, an almost pagan ritual in which Imelda was seated on a wooden throne, and each guest was invited to hand her a single red rose. As I reached Imelda’s throne I leant over, kissed her on the cheek, handed her the prickly stem, and said in all seriousness, “Thank you for inviting me to your party.” She then whispered to me, “Let’s do this again tomorrow!” I was stunned. Leaving the scene from The Wicker Man, we drove straight to the Cockhouse in Laoag in Cel’s jeepney for some medicinal Red Horses, wondering if anything would ever top the evening for sheer strangeness.
The last thing we expected the next morning was a call from the Marcos Mansion, hence the trip to the sand dunes. Lunch was at her son Bong Bong’s five-star resort, a place so classy we each had a waiter standing behind us to wave the flies off our food.
It was then time for a personal guided tour of her home province. We veered off towards Cel’s jeepney…. and instead were asked to join Imelda in her bulletproof limousine bus.
I can only imagine how our bizarre convoy looked – a pickup truck, armed guards with M16s in front of us, a van with armed guards behind us, and Cel’s jeepney bringing up the rear. From inside the bus, Imelda kept up the commentary between micro-naps as we stopped at the Malacanang of the North just long enough for a single photo, drove past a golf club built for Ferdinand for his 60th birthday – snap! – did a loop around the oldest church in Ilocos Norte – snap! – and finally back to the Marcos Mansion, and the adjacent Marcos Museum, opened upon her return to the Philippines in 1993.
Brilliant as ever. Can’t wait to read the full book. The documentary was superb.