Imelda and Pimentel: Along memory lane

It’s been too heavy, the stuff we poured in this space these past weeks. It’s time we took a breather, replaced the banjo with a guitar, and then strolled along memory lane. The first to accost us is Imelda Marcos, a movie about whom opened last Wednesay at the Film Forum in New York. It’s actually a documentary, now reaping the huzzahs, authored by film-maker Ramona Diaz.

Looking back, there was just nobody like Imelda.

The earlier, teen-aged Imelda was promdi as they come, nubile and naïve, and even without any make-up, ravishing without intending to be. She was inordinately shy, even naïve, but the Romualdez in her occasionally lit up like neon in the desert. What struck you was that she was tall and statuesque and like Marilyn Monroe eagerly sought approval from high society at large.That was not hard to get. The equally young and ambitious Ferdinand Marcos, then a congressman,swept Imelda off her feet. And "learned" her.

From then on, it was not long before the probinsyana Imelda became the cosmopolitan Imelda. Speed came into her life, the gaudy garment of fame and popularity, the whirl of Camelot, and a passion to learn, educate herself as soon, almost on her own, she would meet and entertain the political celebrities of the world. At one time, before a projected visit to France and other European countries, she sought to engage my services as her French interpreter. French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing, then whom nobody at the time could be more huffily learned and an aristocrat, would have her as guest for dinner at the Palais d’Elysée.

In that sense, Imelda was a boon for the Philippine president.

What he could not do, she could. Imelda was a charmer, an irresistble siren, who could sing before a VIP crowd. Her beauty then was legend and she could stun Europe as well as the Americas. But I think it was also her beauty, her beguiling charm, that tore the first wounds into the marriage of Malakas and Maganda. She was too much of a woman, too much of the deadly sting of the irresistible Aphrodite that she drew the crowds more than he did.

Marcos became interesting when he talked history, law, discoursed on the lives of great men, his infatuation for Napoleon, his insights on what would happen to the universe, short-term, medium-term, long-term. He could recite verses from Longfellow, of course Shakespeare. In this sense, Filipino politicians of all shades were in awe of him. They could not compete intellectually, except possibly Blas Ople.

He could not enchant as Imelda could, not suffuse the air with perfumed conversation as Imelda could. Macoy had a lot of sex appeal (that’s probably where the trouble started). But later Imelda probably figured Andy (that was his nickname) was luckier marrying her than she marrying him. She did learn a lot, not just from Marcos, but from the many men who sought to impress her, counts and princes, and the royal roustabouts of Europe – evicted royalty. The Bourbons and the Romanovs particularly, whose court manners must have impressed Imelda immensely.

In time, Imelda would impose herself at the Palace.

She had an imperious way, something like a Visayan hauteur that was not there earlier during the marriage. In time, I suppose, the Ilocano humility and sublimation came up against the frills of Visayan aristocracy, and the result was – explosion. This came about during the so-called Dovey Beams affair. The president, it was rumored, became enamored of American party girl and movie star Dovie Beams. Imelda found out. And hell hath no fury like Imelda upstaged in the dovecoat by an American adventuress.

Now she was no longer the probinsiyana from Olot, Leyte.

Insiders told me that was the turning point, or something like it. Imelda reportedly held all the evidence, and she flung tell-tale photos (provided by her spies, I suppose) at her boudoir-loose husband who properly recoiled and fled their dovecote at the Palace, to escape her fury.

And yet, Imelda could not escape loving Ferdinand. Ditto for Andy who sculpted her from sheer coarse marble into a glamor personalithy that was the talk of international café society. Each needed the other. And each, very presumably, had a lot of secrets about the other. The Ilocano could not do without the Visayana. The Visayana could not do without the Ilocano.They may have repelled each other at times, but they complemented each other more, the suckling bee to the nectar, two niggling swallows huddled to each other amorously in pouring rain.

Imelda was a delight to interview. And I interviewed her more than any other.

The "best" in her had to come out in these interviews – "beauty, truth and love." It was a trilogy she could not do without, a mantra that would possess her like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s "I’ll do my best and God will take care of the rest." She probably was sincere when she said those words, beauty, truth and love. But she lathered them with so much emphasis,acted them out I think like Sarah Bernhardt. You heard it the first time, and you were impressed. You heard it 10 times, 20 times, and it was like seeing the movie An Affair to Remember a hundred times. It jades.

Imelda could not possesss just one or two items of the best.

She was a voluptuary when it came to possession. So she purchased about 3000 pairs of shoes (all to be seen at a glance), dozens of elaborate, stunning ternos (all to be seen at a glance, too). Psychologically, this could have recompensed for a relatively impoverished childhood where her blood side of the Romualdezes was being swept under the rug. And as a growing girl, she wore simple hand-me-downs.

I wish we could have remained friends. But life is like that. Imelda was unto the Palace shackled, and all its raiment of dazzzle and royalty. I was unto my profession of journalism locked, and its insistence on truth . And between the two, lines were drawn, and the twain could never meet. I would hit her and her husband like a thunderbolt in my writings and this hurt. The couple would consider the press not just a nuisance, but a sworn enemy.

But whatever she did, the republic’s enemy she might have been, and still probably is, Imelda was class. Nobody could take that away from her.

* * *

There is a whale of a difference between the old Pimentel and the new Pimentel. The former was loved. He was jailed four times during martial rule by then president Ferdinand Marcos, came out each time unchastened, humble as ever, never one to seek and boast of his Promethean success.

Nene was our idol during the times Taza de Oro in Ermita was the favorite rendezvous of all anti-Marcos partisans. Whenever he sauntered into the Taza, the lines formed toward Nene. Outside of Ninoy Aquino, there were also a few who dared and defied Ferdinand Marcos. Nene did it with panache, with a subdued courage, and willingness to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Even when not present, Nene Pimentel was prodigally talked about, a luminous specimen of what the Filipino people needed as a leader. Of course the name of Ninoy Aquino ruled the roost. And what we would have given, we in Taza de Oro. For we lived for the day – a very remote day in our imagination – when a liberated Ninoy could just pop up and lead all of us to the light at the end of the dark tunnel.

Ninoy, by the way, had talked about Nene, a favorite protégé, as his possible successsor. And Nene, in his quiet way, would take cognizance of the kudo. And plod on. He was then organizing PDP-Laban, the party destined to end all political parties. Entry and membership were based on personal integrity, courage, love of country, and of course, hatred of the dictator and his ways. Always, his followers would talk about Nene with unfailing praise.

That was the Nene that we knew. The Nene that Cory Aquino knew.

When the time came for Cory to drop Nene from her cabinet as secretary of the Interior and Local Government, on the urgings of a paranoid military who suspected he had strong links with the Left, Cory wept. She had learned to love and value Nene as a friend, the only cabinet member she would allow to touch her physically. A gentle shoulder tap. A hand-holding or body gesture to allow her to dismount her car or campaign vehicle.

Today, Nene is somewhat different. He knows his value in the stock market of politicians, and behaves accordingly. There is a peremptory lift in his voice, a more assertive stance, a panther’s tread, a lion’s growl. It all came out during his four-hour filibuster Tuesday in Congress. Nene waved off anybody who sought to intervene, even the chair, then "demanded" he be allowed to take a lunch-break. He would talk "until doomsday."

He was now Pimentel, the public scold, the know-it-all, the lion-tamer, words pouring out of him like a biblical deluge. And so, even Jaime Cardinal Sin had to call by telephone to request, in all cordiality of course, if he could just shut up.