Response to "Imelda" by Rod Antalan

Ethics & Fairness

In class we watched a film which displayed how Imelda Marcos lived her life and how she continues to live it still. I must admit that I’ve heard stories about her extravagant lifestyle and never really thought of it because I had no actual idea of how blessed it truly was after she had married Ferdinand. I think that what struck me the most was how she had conditioned herself to believe that she was giving so much to her people when in actuality she was taking so much away from them.
I can remember just thinking how self righteous she carried herself as. It disappointed me that she could not see what she was really doing. I believe that she really started off good by going around to the rural areas of the Philippines to show that she cared for the people. Although when she began to build largely lavish buildings to show the beauty and arts of the Philippines to establish identity, I feel as though she was putting a little bandage on an even bigger wound. It seems as though she neglected to see that the things she was making did not really help the Filipino people. The buildings he made were only of use to those who actually had money. However, the majority of the Filipinos did not have the money to use the things she gave to them.
She could have used all the money spent on materials and labor for those buildings on further developing the quality of life for her people and to achieve John Rawls’ definition of common good. His definition of this concept is, “certain general conditions that are… equally to everyone’s advantage.” As an outsider looking at the life of Imelda, one has to assume that she was not looking at advancing her people so much as she was trying to advance herself.
It is apparent that what this woman holds highly is the concept of beauty. Throughout the movie, she continued to describe how she dressed up for the people so that she could be their star and slave. The film showed her servants, all dressed in white, laying out Imelda’s collection of hand-sewn clothes and showed Imelda watching herself on T.V. and basking in her own vanity. This was ridiculous to me because she was clearly did not care for the people so much as she cared for the image of how her people were portrayed. She only cared to see the “beautiful” side of things rather than the ugly reality of everyday living in the Philippines.
I thought that this film was actually very creative in that it wasn’t trying to force you in a certain direction because it showed you the good and the bad which came from the Marcos dictatorship. It allowed you to analyze for yourself instead of feeding you information to sway you to one side. I really enjoyed how the film showed the contradictions in what Imelda said she wanted for her country and her people when in actuality, she did not help them very much at all.
The images presented within the film, according to the reading, are what allow us to make connections about what is really going on. An example of this comes from the parts within the movie when Imelda is walking around the city and people come up to take pictures with her. You can tell that Imelda does not really care for them and all she wants is the recognition and attention because of her status within society. Even when she holds babies, she doesn’t do it because she adores children. Instead, she does it so that it boosts up her own personal image so those who see the pictures will think of her as a kind person. Then once she was done taking pictures, she does not even acknowledge the people she took them with. What she did was hand the baby off back to the parents and continued on her way.
The example of the reading which describes how images should be seen was interesting to me. It described how we see a person with a tuxedo as being of high class. Yet when we see the same exact person with the background of a fancy restaurant and bending over a table, this person becomes a servant who is now low class. This foreground image versus the background image was a theme which was apparent throughout the movie. You would be shown an elegantly dressed beautiful woman parading up and down the streets of rural towns where people had nothing but rags on. You would be shown the beautiful and grand Imelda’s church while right across the street or next door would be little shacks.
It was these kind of images which allowed you to see what was more important to these people who were supposed to be looking for the greater good of the people they were leading. They were supposed to look out for the common good yet failed by looking out for themselves.