Using the two materials (reading and the film) as my framework, I conclude that Imelda is “sinless.” Let me first aver that I am politically neutral (at least I think so), never voted for any political party to be put in office, and I have not done a thorough research on the Marcoses. All I know about them was through second hand community gossip and media presentations. So, if I remove my conscience or bias and remain legalistic using just two materials, I will argue why Imelda is sinless.
However, let me first answer the required Reflection Questions. The question of common good is an important question because ethically no society is able to achieve its goal if “common good” is to be followed by its definition. For the common good! Velasquez and etal defines common good as, “having the social system, institution, and environments on which we all depend work in a manner that benefits all people.” Since most societies are pluralistic, different people with different agendas pushing for the common good will never reach a unanimous stand.
I don’t quite understand the second question, however, actors act in accord with the common good usually to appease the viewing majority – most of the time the moral majority. If the actor projects the image that the public wants or demands – this should produce a facet for the common good. I will skip questions 3- 5 since the revolutions were portrayed minimally in the film and this questions may pertain to the other film not viewed yet.
Finally, the last question, since the Filipinos’ individual rights were already being violated, most individuals sacrificed their individual rights “for the common good.” They protested for a new collective government. Now back to my “mode of analysis” (Berger) defense of “Mother Santa Imelda” - the sinless, the immaculate. As Berger mentions, “The purpose of film criticism … is to interpret and explain film.” And I would like to add as Berger mentioned, not to criticize but to understand. Also, I would like to remind my readers, it is an OBJECTIVE analysis.
If we set-aside for a moment the question of “for whose good?” and “discard the notion of relative values” and just concentrate in the meaning of “for the common good,” Imelda has fulfilled her ethical requirements. Common good is reached when “members relatively [have] ready access to their own fulfillment.”
Imelda’s maxim was, “If I lived well, the poor lived well.” Although (if I may take the liberty to say, no pun intended) that her thinking may be deluded to us, if her notion of “I for all succeed” is to be taken as truth, she succeeded in reaching “for the common good.”
Admittedly, she lived a “beautiful” life. A lavish life. Although frowned upon, she put the Philippines on the map by applying make-up to it. Although, immoral to some, her intent of for the common good of the Philippines, in and in her words, “for the honor of the Philippines,” she and the population attained a façade of “common good.”
Yes, the population was drunk by her didactic reasoning and as a coping mechanism for the parentless beggar in the Smoky Mountains, the beggar gives her blessing to Imelda to perpetuate the common good. The actor is playing the viewers psychological want and goal. Since Imelda is such a great actor, she is working for the common good.
Even her questionable “edifice complex” did generate somewhat of an economic push. The dress, the shoes, the arts, the childish idea of creating Philippines as the center for the arts in Asia made her stay true to her maxim of presenting the Filipino people as living beautiful. In the interest for the Filipino, did she not say when she is to be seen in public, she gets ready for an hour for dignitaries and royals but one-a-half hour for the common Filipinos?”
Since she was able to get the population “drunk” (the way the harlot, Babylon the Great, got everyone drunk in the book of Revelation) with her goal, the impoverished deluded, naïve citizens (what seems as a whole) seems to have accepted her mission. Thus, if she keeps up her bargain to keep being beautiful (remember Velasquez and etal, “choose to [continually] do [her] part) and if the “swayed” people choose to continually revere her as mother demi-goddess, she and they are innocently doing what is “common good.” Remember, when they came into her closet, “they found shoes, not skeletons.”
God, save us.
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