Few people can be as beautiful as Gov. Imee Marcos when they reach 60, but her cover for Philippine Tatler has drawn both praise and ire.
The society magazine posted the cover on its Facebook page with the caption:
Gracing the cover of our fashion issue is style icon Governor Imee Marcos, photographed by the wildly talented BJ Pascual. Discover her thoughts on growing up in the shadow of her parents, supporting Philippine designers, and the wisdom that comes with turning (believe it or not) 60.
The caption also mentioned other stories in the issue, like the current state of Filipino design, a tribute to Filipino creative talent, and the evolution of the country’s fashion industry.
The photo’s comment section was filled with praise for the Ilocos Norte governor, calling her gorgeous, sexy, and a combination of beauty and brains.
But not all comments were positive. Lorraine Marie T. Badoy shared the photo and wrote a lengthy post, detailing how her beauty is the result of plastic surgery at the country’s expense. According to her:
Massive plastic surgery done exceedingly well.
I am grateful to know, for once, where our money went and that it was well-spent—unlike Bongbong’s Oxford “education”. (We all know what happened there. Nagpaaral TAYO sa Oxford, anong ginawa? Ha? Anong ginawa mo, Bongbong? Drugs, partying, bulakbol. Pulpol.) (We all know what happened there. We put him in Oxford and what did he do? What did you do, Bongbong? Drugs, partying, going out.)
But Imee did her homework well.
Got one of the best plastic surgeons to chainsaw her chin and anime her eyes and god knows what else. Yes, okay, it’s still a pain to know we paid for her makeover. Still, you gotta hand it to her.
She then compared the cover to seeing people who have less.
I see how massive wealth stolen from a country bleeding and down on its knees can be used to buy not just respectability but oh-darn-god adoration from the very people this family of shameless thieves have bled dry.
I look at this and I can’t help but see, in my mind’s eye, the hordes of people who swoop down at Rustan’s grocery in my neighborhood when it closes at night, to scavenge for food.
And I see reed-thin half naked children knocking on my car’s window to beg for food.
Millions upon millions of Filipinos living worst than dogs—under our bridges, in hovels made of torn tarpaulin and stitched together with the flimsiest of their desperate hopes.
And I cannot help but see children of Samar covered in boils weeping with pus and blood from their heads down to their toes because there are no health services in a country mired in widespread theft by those in power—the solid Marcos legacy: systemic and systematic corruption.
And I can, once again, smell the sour pungent smell of the severely impoverished that hits you in the face and stays on your skin no matter how hard you scrub nor how many times you soap yourself.
And she brought up Martial Law, the proclamation her father, then-President Ferdinand Marcos, declared in 1972.
And I see red, Imee.
I see the blood of thousands of martyrs of Martial Law–bloodied, hogtied, chopped with evidence of severe torture, rape.
And I see the bloodied body of Archimedes Trajano—the 22 year old Mapua student who had the temerity to ask Imee Marcos in an open forum “Must the Kabataang Barangay be headed by the president’s daughter?” And this so angered the plastic-surgeried one that Archimedes Trajano was picked up right there and then by Imee’s bodyguards and tortured and killed.
22 years old.
And his life was over.22 years old.
Like my son is now.And as curious-to-know-answers as my son is. Lucky for my son, he can now ask that question of any politician and not get killed.
So yeah, I look at the heavily-photoshopped, massively-plastic-surgeried Imee and I see the truth Marcos loyalists do not want to see and what the deeply asleep cannot see:
A monster who continues to live in vulgar extravagance with wealth stolen from generations of Filipinos.
Someone who is part of that family of obscene fucks who stole our country’s bright future and has done so without a tinge of shame nor remorse.
She ended her entry with a plead for the country to wake up from a stupor. She said, “Gising, mga kababayan ko. Nagmamakaawa ako. Gising na.” (Wake up, my countrymen. I am begging. Wake up.)
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