Imelda not afraid of Noynoy victory

LAOAG CITY, Philippines – Former first lady Imelda Marcos is not afraid of the possibility that Ninoy Aquino’s son, Sen. Noynoy Aquino, would become president and run after the alleged Marcos ill-gotten wealth.

“Noynoy can do all he wants (in pursuit of the alleged Marcos wealth). I’m not afraid. I don’t care,” Mrs. Marcos told newsmen over dinner Wednesday night at the Fort Ilocandia Resort Hotel.

She said she is confident that the would-be probe on the controversial Marcos fortune would be a futile exercise.

Aquino earlier vowed that he would initiate his own probe on the Marcos wealth if he is elected president.

The Marcos widow, who came here to visit the casualty and those injured in the ambush staged against Nacionalista Party bets in Dingras town and in Ilocos Norte, belittled the planned probe, citing her success in the celebrated racketeering case she fought in a New York court.

“Noynoy can go after me but if in the US I won the RICO case in 1990 (how much more here)?” she asserted.

“He can do everything but can he fight the truth?” Mrs. Marcos asked, saying that the “truth” has been on her side, although for many years she did nothing but “but defend myself in court.”

“The truth is with me as it had been in the Trial of the Century which is the RICO case,” she said, boasting that 350,000 documents were involved in the trial.

Meantime, Mrs. Marcos is also not losing hope that the remains of her husband will finally be interred at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

She is pinning her hope on Nacionalista Party standard-bearer Sen. Manny Villar, whom she expects to head the next administration.

“I’m sure Manny Villar will do the right thing,” she said.

The body of the late president lies in a refrigerated crypt in the Marcos mausoleum in Batac City.

Various administrations had ignored pleas for a hero’s burial for the late president at the Libingan.

The Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) which Marcos founded and is now headed by his son Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., has entered into a coalition with Villar’s NP.

Bongbong is running for senator under the NP.

Mrs. Marcos also denied that the late strongman’s burial at the Libingan is part of the NP-KBL coalition agreement.