Imelda defers trip, fights eviction

TACLOBAN CITY – Former First Lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos postponed yesterday her planned medical checkup abroad so she could personally appeal to a court in Manila to stop her eviction from two sequestered mansions in Leyte.

The 72-year-old widow of deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos told The STAR yesterday the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) has barred her from entering the 42-hectare Olot mansion in Tolosa town and the multimillion-dollar Sto. Niño Shrine and Heritage Museum on Real street in Tacloban City.

"Our ancestral home, where we grew up and where my parents are buried, is going to be taken over by the government," she said.

Marcos said the Olot Mansion, which has a 19-hole golf course and swimming pool, is titled in the name of former finance secretary Eduardo Romualdez, the son of her uncle, former Manila mayor Miguel Romualdez.

"I don’t know why they are sequestering this (mansion)," she said.

Mrs. Marcos said she and her lawyers will present "vital documents" before a court in Manila to prove that her family owned the controversial properties long before Marcos became president.

"I’m going to the court in Manila to bring documents of our ownership and prove this is the ancestral home of the Romualdezes," she said. "This is where my father was born. This will be in any court wherein we can present the truth."

Marcos said the Romualdezes had given her a usufruct over the properties so she could improve them and that the title had not been transferred to her name.

"They just gave it to me to improve and use it," she said. "Because Leyte (is) a historical place and since I was privileged as First Lady, I had (to) improve the place."

Marcos said the two properties, along with nearly a dozen others in Leyte, have been under sequestration for the past 15 years, since former President Corazon Aquino created the PCGG, on suspicion that they were ill-gotten.

"I have to do it," she said. "We should honor and ensure that the dead have eternal peace, and let’s leave them in peace."

Mrs. Marcos said she was "devastated and shocked" when she learned through The STAR that the PCGG had padlocked 20 rooms in the Olot mansion.

"I am devastated by it because I have to take care not only of my children, who were persecuted and vilified, but for the dead," she said. "The living may be able to take care of themselves, but how about the dead?"

Marcos said she was unhappy over the "vandalism and destruction" of the sequestered properties and their being rented out for commercial purposes.

"People felt this was part of the history of our province," she said. "And they are not only leasing it, they are not only selling it, (but) they are vandalizing it and not taking care of it."

Mrs. Marcos said she had found out that the People’s Center and Library, which is adjacent to the Sto. Niño Shrine, has become a "flea market" and its large collection and manuscripts from the United States are gone.

"Can you imagine, the library where we spent million of dollars is now a flea market," she said. "This was a library in the University of New York that I placed here. I did not want any Leyteño to be deprived of a source of knowledge. And now they use it as a ‘flea market’. Why?"

Marcos said when she last visited the Olot mansion, she saw that 50-year-old trees in the 42-hectare property were being cut down without any regard for the environment.

"I saw that they started cutting trees that were 50 years old," she said. "I don’t know why. When I came here the last time I saw it being done. And now we are being evicted from our home. Where will we go?"