"Imelda" By Lynna

We watched a film in class titled “Imelda”. It was about the former first lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos. She is the widow of the late Ferdinand Marcos, the exiled president of the Philippines. In the film she talks about her life story, how she rose from humble origins to becoming one of the richest and most powerful woman in the world and an influential political figure in her home country, the Philippines.
Although she is seen as this intelligent lady who knew and understood politics, Imelda Marcos was accused of abusing political power. In the film she says that “people misunderstood” her. Being that she knew politics, she took advantage of her power. I don’t think that too many Filipinos know a lot about politics and what goes on, so Imelda and her husband, president at the time, did things that they taught would help the country but behind it all, they were abusing their power. It may have seemed like the country was benefiting from what they was doing, but in the long run it was corrupted.
One thing that I didn’t agree about Imelda was that it was wrong of her to symbolize the poorer people of the Philippines because she represented herself as struggle less and very glamorous out in the public. I don’t think it was fair for the people because in reality, they are hard workers struggling day-by-day in old ragged clothes. Imelda Marcos had an extravagant life style and supposedly wanted her beauty to represent the poor people. People criticized her for being a symbol of them. She overlooks the poverty of her people. To me, she was a mastermind of abuse and fraud with too many money. The people didn’t need her to represent them because I believe that Filipinos are smarter than her. They just learned the hard way because they were manipulated. In her documentary, it seemed like she didn’t even know what she was talking about. The thing that made me laugh was when she was drawing out something and saying how this and that represent something…it didn’t make any sense. I’d like to see the book that she published because I didn’t quite get it when she was drawing this entire diagram (or whatever that was). She totally gave me the wrong impression about her. I thought she was this really smart lady and that she was going somewhere with her drawing, but I got lost after a while.
The Marcos family was worth a lot of money, over a billion dollars. People accused them of embezzling money from the government and rigging the votes for presidency. People were concerned and questioning the Marcos’s. President Ferdinand Marcos was scared and didn’t know what to do so he called the white house to ask for advice. He spoke to U.S Senator, Paul Laxalt, and he was advised to “cut and cut cleanly”. On the day the new president, Corazon Aquino was inaugurated, the Marcos made the decision to leave the country. They knew that trouble was coming their way because the people were angry at them. Imelda Marcos still claims that their wealth was legitimate and that her husband was a gold trader, but the Bureau of Internal Revenue has no record of the Marcos family declaring or paying taxes on these assets.

Ethical Reflection:
The question of common good is an important ethical question because it involves the representation of every individual in which they must perform in life regardless of their status. This is taken from the web, “by the same token those who represent the government, be it local or national, must perform their role with the utmost integrity and dedication for the common good and not their personal interest” (Card Ricardo J. Vidal, archbishop of Cebu). This is what Imelda Marcos did not have when she and her husband was in office. They only thought about their own good and not the good of their people. Coming from a third world country, it is important to take into account what is best for the people and at the same time, make sure it’s appropriate for them. We need to understand that the country is not fortunate like America and that money was not easy there, so it was unethical for people with power to suggest things that the country doesn’t even have. For example, using money to build structures in the Philippines that did not even benefit the people. Yes, jobs were there but people also got hurt even killed because Imelda was only thinking about getting the job done.
I think that we need to revisit the questions of violence because of things such as election violence and corruption that exposes the rotten state of the justice system. With the conclusion of the legislative and local elections in the Philippines, violence and corrupt practices always occur. During election time in the Philippines, election-related violence occurs because people cheat and voters feel used. The levels of corrupt practices reached a point where politicians accused of vote-buying have felt that they too may be victims; the way in which elections are conducted is a shock. There is no end to the creative forms of electoral corruption: reports of missing election materials and ballot boxes, election documents found inside a political rival's quarters, a massive increase of a questionable number of registered voters, disfranchisement of voters, names of deceased persons allowed voting and so on. The people of the Philippines need to work more on what they should do so that everyone is happy with the outcome. If votes have been rigged, then the whole country is just waiting for corruptness because the results are not from the people of the country but from those people with power. As long as the existing system of law enforcement and justice functions improperly, the worst forms of violence, corrupt practices and state of lawlessness become inevitable. Filipinos way of life are subconsciously forced to accept them. Elections are meaningless to the people if defects such as these are not addressed.
The only good thing I know about the late Ferdinand Marcos is that he was a smart man and that he came from Ilocos Norte in the Philippines. Ilocos Norte is where my parents are from. It’s too bad he scam the people because a lot of people were depending on him for change. Sometimes, money just isn’t the solution but fault to corruption.