The goddess of justice Themis is customarily portrayed with a blindfold, but when she has to get in the way of multi-billion dollar thefts, her hands often turn out to be tied. Imelda Romualdez Marcos, the widow of the last dictator of the Philippines, proved this truth with all the brilliance. She and her late husband Ferdinand were accused of misappropriation of at least $ 10 billion, extortion, fraud and tax evasion. According to the laws of the United States, where the hearing was held, Imelda was threatened with 50 years in prison, but she left the courtroom acquitted on all counts.
Daughter of a dissolute father
Long before the 1986 coup d'état, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, who held a number of key government posts, were forced to flee the country, the book written by journalist Carmen Pedroza, “The Untold Story of Imelda Marcos,” was banned. .
In it, the author very inadvertently touched on a sensitive topic, namely, the childhood that the president’s wife spent in her parents ’house, although they were not poor people, but often gave rise to numerous gossip. Despite the fact that her father, Vicente Orestes, belonged to an influential Filipino family, whose members held a high position in society, he himself enjoyed a very bad reputation as an inveterate drunkard and spender. The first lady did not allow anyone to remember this.
After the death of his first wife, who could not stand the constant scandals and humiliation, the father hastened to marry a very young sixteen-year-old girl who became the mother of five children, the eldest of whom was Imelda Marcos, who was born on July 2, 1929. Growing up, the girl often spent the night in the garage, fleeing from the outrages that were happening at home. On these pages of her childhood there was also a taboo.
The first beauty of the Philippines
Fate was very supportive of her, generously endowing her with beauty, musical abilities, intelligence and, most importantly, truly iron perseverance. All these qualities allowed the young girl to turn into a legend over time, striking the minds of her contemporaries with her enormous wealth, the criminal source of which only gave her some piquancy in the eyes of admirers.
Imelda's mother, like the first wife of her dissolute father, passed away early, but thanks to her care, her daughter still managed to graduate from college in the city of Tacloban and earn a bachelor's degree. The true success of Imelda and the beginning of a brilliant career was the victory at the beauty contest held in 1948, where she won the title of "Miss Philippines".
Since that time, many prominent politicians and businessmen have sought the favor of the young beauty, but the girl knew her worth and, as a true player, cherished for the time being her trump card - virginity, which was valued above all else in Catholic Manila. Filled with the most incredible ambitions, Imelda was waiting for someone who would make her not a guest, but the mistress of the fabulous world of wealth and luxury. And she got what she wanted.
Future dictator
The house of her relatives in Manila was often visited by leaders of the nationalist party, making it essentially its headquarters. Communicating with them, Imelda learned to navigate the diversity of the country's political life. In 1954, during one of these informal meetings, she met her future husband ─ a member of the House of the Philippine Congress Ferdinand Marcos, who soon proposed to her. So the young beauty began to be called Imelda Marcos.
Her chosen one was a very outstanding person, so it’s worthwhile to dwell on him in more detail. Born in 1917 in the family of a lawyer practicing in a small town located 400 kilometers from Manila, Ferdinand graduated from college and, following in his father's footsteps, became a lawyer.
However, for the first time he showed his lawyer's talent in the most eccentric way. The fact is that in 1939, in front of everyone's eyes, Marcos shot his father’s political opponent from a revolver, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. However, at the repeated process, he undertook to defend himself, and so deftly led the matter that he was acquitted. This immediately brought him an extensive clientele.
During World War II, a young lawyer fought with the Japanese in the ranks of the partisan detachment, but at the same time, according to eyewitnesses, managed to crank large scams on the black market. The combat past and numerous orders, for which he, however, did not have the corresponding award documents, allowed Ferdinand to make a political career after the war and become the youngest congressman in the country.
In 1965 - according to the results of general elections - he became the 10th president of the Philippines. The future dictator, who plundered the lion's share of the country's national wealth during the years of his reign, won, oddly enough, under the banner of the fight against corruption, in which his predecessor was involved. However, such examples are by no means a rarity in world history.
The triumphal flight of the Iron Butterfly
Imelda Marcos, a photo of which is given in different periods of her life in the article, and her husband Ferdinand were perfectly suited to each other. His business acumen and utter lack of principle in choosing funds were perfectly complemented by the beauty and charm of his wife. It was this combination that allowed both Ferdinand Marcos and his wife to push competitors to the top of the political and financial Olympus.
During his twenty-year reign, Imelda held a number of key posts. In particular, she was the Governor of Manila, Minister, Member of Parliament, and, in addition, in the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, she carried out important diplomatic missions. In 1975, Mrs. Marcos visited the USSR and was received at the Kremlin by L. I. Brezhnev. For the beauty that combined in it with an extraordinary hardness of character, Imelda Marcos was popularly nicknamed the “Iron Butterfly”.
The salary received by the spouses was comparatively small, but nevertheless they lived in extraordinary luxury, transferring millions of American dollars, sent as aid to the people of the Philippines, to personal bank accounts in Switzerland and Rome. Dozens of financial agents purchased real estate for them in the countries of Europe and America, registering it, as a rule, with dummies.
Military dictatorship to replace democracy
If the beginning of the reign of the 10th president of the Philippines can be described as a period of democratic freedoms in the country, then over time, increasing greed has led to a change in the domestic policy, in which the large-scale thefts committed by him and his wife Imelda Marcos could be openly criticized and exposed.
He won the next presidential election of 1969, shamelessly resorting to intimidation, bribery and fraud during the vote count, and after 3 years he finally buried democracy, introducing a military dictatorship in the country. The formal reason for this was the attempt on one of the high-ranking officials of Marcos, which, according to many journalists, was staged by him.
The martial law established in the country was accompanied by massive repression of all who dared to raise a voice of protest. Thousands of opposition-minded Filipinos were thrown into jails without trial and investigation, many of whom have sunk without a trace in the dungeons of the bloody dictator.
Looting Your Own Country
In parallel with the tightening of the regime in the country, the standard of living of its ordinary citizens fell catastrophically. This was explained by the fact that national wealth, as well as multimillion-dollar sums allocated by the world community and, above all, America, to boost the Philippine economy, was barbarously plundered by the Marcos spouses, as well as by an insatiable pack of their relatives and close people, for each of which there was a place at the state feeding trough.
Nothing can corrupt people like absolute power. This truth, having long since become commonplace, nevertheless finds more and more confirmation. In this case, Imelda Marcos herself can serve as a striking example. In addition to budget funds, which in various ways got into her bank accounts, she received enormous income from thirty leading state corporations she personally headed, which she managed as her property.
For a long time, huge amounts of “black cash” were packed and exported from the country. The extent of the theft of that period may be indicated by a curious fact established by investigators after the fall of the dictatorial regime. Once, Imelda Marcos sent so many suitcases with money to a Geneva bank that a telegram came from there with a request to temporarily stop, as the staff could not cope with making deposits.
"Little weaknesses" of Mrs. Marcos
All this allowed the Iron Butterfly to live in fabulous luxury. In addition to luxury residences in the Philippines, she owned a lot of expensive real estate in various countries of the world. It is even known that she was one step away from the purchase of the famous New York Empire State Building ─ the World Trade Center located on Manhattan Island. She refused the deal only when she heard somewhere that the building was overly pretentious in its architecture.
The grandiose shopping that Imelda arranged during her trips abroad became a real legend. A 1970 document fell into the hands of investigators, according to which, in just one day spent in Geneva, the Iron Butterfly managed to spend 9 million pounds. A month later, visiting New York, she sent home purchases that barely fit in three huge sea containers.
The jewels of Imelda Marcos deserve special attention. She was addicted to them and bought in incredible quantities. Suffice it to say that, in addition to gold products with diamonds and other precious stones, the investigators turned out to have so many pearls of the highest grades that they could fill an area of ​​38 square meters.
Like any woman, the companion of the Philippine dictator loved beautiful outfits. But her passion took on completely hypertrophic forms. The parable of the town became the shoes of Imelda Marcos, of whom 360 pairs were discovered after her flight from the country. In addition to national costumes, which were made in a personal atelier only at her place, 160 dresses from leading world couturiers were found in the wardrobe rooms of the main residence. It is known that they were always delivered by special flights of airlines.
It has long been known that the owners of such myriad wealth, as a rule, lose their idea of ​​the real value of the things that belong to them. This can be confirmed by the testimony of a sales agent whose responsibility was to compile an inventory of the property left by the wife of the deposed dictator after fleeing the country.
In his reports, he writes about a precious crystal, fragments of which were found among fireplace ashes, about unique XII century manuscripts shoved under a steam boiler. An antique mirror, purchased at an auction in Paris and once owned by Louis XIV, was lying broken in the middle of the room. Piles of the finest bedding, over which the whole workshops of embroiderers worked, rotted in cupboards and covered with mold. A huge collection of Imelda Marcos shoes was gathering dust in the empty rooms of the wardrobe.
The collapse of the dictator
Meanwhile, the situation in the country was gradually heating up. The miserable situation of the bulk of its citizens has led to increasing deaths from hunger and disease every year. The authorities did not take any measures, taking care only to hide the real state of things from the world community.
The social explosion occurred in 1983. The detonator for him was the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino, a political adversary who returned from exile. Despite the authorities claiming that the murdered man had been sent by a communist agent, no one believed him, and the widow of the late Corazon Aquino, taking advantage of the growing discontent in the country, managed to initiate a military coup.
She, having been in Washington, convinced the American government that the ousted dictator was essentially a corrupt and insignificant person. As a result, the First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos and her husband, were forced to flee from a country that they had seen as their personal estate in the past 20 years.
Shame on American Justice
Now back to the beginning of the article and try to find out what prevented American Themis from punishing the stolen family. First of all, the dictator himself did not live up to the beginning of the process and died on September 28, 1989 from kidney disease, so Imelda Marcos had to answer only.
The story is rather dark. It was officially announced that all the charges against her had collapsed due to the refusal of the leadership of Swiss banks to provide prosecutors with data on her accounts. They also sent a categorical answer to the new government of the Philippines, whose head was Corazon Aquino, the widow of the murdered senator. Imelda Marcos was charged with exile with 80 charges of various economic crimes, but not one of them resulted in a guilty verdict.
About the reason why the prosecutor’s office so quickly retreated from their charges, many different assumptions were put forward. But, one way or another, Imelda Marcos (photo below) throughout the days of the trial contemptuously looked at her judges, was acquitted for lack of evidence. She left the courtroom with her fingers folded in the victory sign “Victoria” (photo above).
Homecoming
Imelda Marcos did not stay in exile for very long. During her absence, a large clan of the widow Aquino came to power in the country, as well as a number of representatives of the former aristocracy, who had been ousted from the feeding trough at one time. Yesterday's anti-corruption fighters began to frantically tear to pieces everything that they did not manage to plunder Marcos. As a result, many regretted that they hurried to expel their former rulers from the country.
Thanks to these sentiments that swept society in 1991, the government was forced to authorize the return of Imelda Marcos. At the Manila airport, she was met by a crowd of her supporters, who apparently saw her as less evil than that represented by Corazon Aquino in power. Strange as it may seem, but after returning to her homeland after a very shameful escape, the wife of the former dictator managed to continue her political career. She thrice ─ in 1995, 2010 and 2013 - was elected to Congress and became a member of the House of Representatives.
She still lives on, although years have taken their toll. Imelda Marcos, who in her youth was considered the first beauty of the Philippines, and in old age did not lose a significant part of her former charm. She lives in a luxurious atmosphere familiar to her, and answers to journalists' questions about the fate of $ 10 billion, sunk into the bowels of Swiss banks, only answers with a mysterious smile.