RECYCLABLOG 11: 1974 Master ShowMa’am: Walang Matutulog!

In 1974, the Martial Law regime went on an international blietzkrieg PR campaign selling the Philippines as a world-class venue. Securing the 1974 Miss Universe pageant for Manila, Madame Imelda made sure the visitors would be impressed so she had the Folk Arts Theater built in a record 90 days (talagang walang tulugan!); finished just in time for the pageant’s staging! And as the original mastershowperson, Imelda staged that magnificent “sidelight” for all the contestants, organizers and tourists to marvel at: the “Kasaysayan ng Lahi” parade. The parade, snaked across the CCP complex grounds presenting the history of the Philippines in floats and “live” dioramas. The power couple, FL & FM, watched from a constructed grandstand filled with foreign diplomats and the emerging coterie of “Blue Ladies”. One of the highlights of the parade was the Lapu-Lapu “diorama” which featured a g-string clad Lapu-Lapu marching together with his fellow combatants. It drew the loudest cheers, mainly because the person who played Lapu-Lapu was no less than the “it” guy of that year, Mr. Body Beautiful, Vic Vargas. Of course, decades later,Mr. Vargas outed himself just before he passed away.. I guess he would have preferred the title which Vivian Velez held. (Another highlight of the parade was a fly-by made by a squadron of then modern Philippine F-5 jet fighters known as “The Blue Diamonds” headed by one Colonel Arturo Sotelo. It is the same Col. Sotelo who,12 years later, during the second day of the EDSA revolution, would lead a fleet of Huey helicopters to Camp Crame and defect to the Ramos side. Sotelo then ordered two of his Hueys to Malacanang to strafe the palace grounds… Should’ve done it during the parade and saved us from having to deal with all that martial law baggage. )

Source: http://indiosbravos.blog.com/2011/05/10/recyclablog-8-1974-master-showmaam-walang-matutulog/

RECYCLABLOG 8: The Tomas-Imee Affair:Gone Baby Gone

Let’s take a breather from scandalous affairs of the political nature. You may have forgotten that Imee Marcos was once married to the tall, dark and handsome Tommy Manotoc:  multi-titled professional basketball coach, talented amateur golfer, father of club-scene enfant terrible Borgy, and… mysterious kidnap victim.   In early 1982, Tomas “Tommy” Manotoc was kept blindfolded for 41 days as a captive of  the NPA. The leftist rebels reportedly asked for a 29 million peso ransom and demanded the release of communist leaders Joma Sison, Satur Ocampo and Bernabe Buscayno among others. At least that was what Manotoc told a press conference in February 1982 after he was “rescued” by government agents. The press conference was facilitated by then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile (you know where the truth is headed in this one). The Tommy Manotoc-Imee Marcos affair played too much like a tele-novela that it was as surreal as that press conference (I remember the live telecast where Manotoc was escorted into the Malacanang press room looking anxious but not at all haggard and for a total “kidnapped” look, he sported a thick beard). 

Tommy and Imee met in early 1981 through a mutual friend. It was reportedly love at first sight. And though Manotoc was already divorced from his first wife, beauty queen Aurora Pijuan, the divorce was not recognized in Catholic Philippines. But more importantly the relationship with the high profile Imee was frowned upon by by Imee’s parents: Ferdie and Meldy. Ferdinand was not too pleased because the Manotoc family was related to very prominent exiled political opponents: Raul Manglapus and Eugenio Lopez. Imelda, on the other hand, had more pompous reasons:  she was Maharlika’s queen after all and if Imelda thought she was royalty, then her children deserved no less. Everyone in the circle of her “Blue Ladies” knew that Imelda was still salivating from the wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles. She was maneuvering for a match up with one of Antonio Floirendo’s sons since Prince Charles had already been taken. But Imee and Tommy eloped.  They secretly got married in Arlington Virginia on December 4, 1981. The two flew back to Manila and that’s when the drama pushed full throttle. On the night of December 29, 1981, as Tommy Manotoc was driving back to his house in San Lorenzo Village Makati, his car was rear ended. Armed men jumped out, pistol-whipped Manotoc, dragged him into their car and drove away. Tommy Manotoc was kidnapped. The following day, a furious Imee confronted her father and asked if he had anything to do with the disappearance. The Apo reportedly just kept silent. The incident went unreported for several days until foreign correspondents got hold of a marriage certificate of Imee and Tommy.  The story of the marriage and the mysterious disappearance of Manotoc broke but after a few more weeks, no other details  of the disappearance  came out. Then the family of Manotoc received a first ransom note, supposedly handwritten by Tommy. The note said that he was being held by the NPA led by one Kumander Ulupong but Ricardo Manotoc, Tommy’s father, thought the note was fake saying that the handwriting on the note wasn’t Tommy’s. Ricardo publicly accused Ferdinand Marcos of involvement in the kidnapping (brave guy this Ricardo!). Through the Marcos controlled press, Ferdinand expressed concern about the kidnapping but did not say anything about Tommy Manotoc’s relationship with her daughter. The more vocal Imelda, suggested that ”If they really think the President is involved, they should be coming to him on bended knee to beg for their son’s life.” She also said that if Tommy Manotoc were killed, she would resign from all her public posts. Referring to her would be son-in-law as “that son of a bitch”, she said in private that it wasn’t worth risking a single life to save the man that married her daughter. 

Over a month after the news of the Tommy Manotoc’s disappearance broke, the charade was finally over. News was leaked to the press that government agents had an “encounter” with communist rebels in the Sierra Madre mountains and that they had “rescued” Tommy Manotoc. A day before Valentine’s, the bearded Tommy Manotoc was presented to the press. During the orchestrated news conference, the smiling Manotoc gave very vague comments and seemed to have heard very little from his captors and remembered even less. He apologized for his family’s insinuations that the president was involved in the kidnapping. Many Metro Manila residents anyway were very skeptical, in part because Imee was seen around town laughing and smiling during her husband’s absence. The government said that all of Manotoc’s captors had escaped except for one man who was killed. He was never identified. Tommy and Imee separated in 1999.

Source: http://indiosbravos.blog.com/2011/04/30/recyclablog-8-the-tomas-imee-affairgone-baby-gone/

RECYCLABLOG # 2:My Big Fat Greek Accomplice

On March 9, 1986, a Greek national boarding a plane for Hong Kong was stopped by customs officials when they found the man carrying a suspicious package of 8 large padded envelopes. The officials asked him to open the envelopes and they found pieces of expensive jewelry in each one of them. When questioned about the ownership of the precious stones, the Greek national admitted they belonged to Imelda Marcos and they were to be collected by a jeweler friend of Imelda’s in Hong Kong. The Greek passenger’s name: Demetrios Roumeliotes and the seized jewels were to be known as the famous Roumeliotes collection, the most valuable and magnificent of Imelda’s jewelry.

The seized items were boarded onto armoured cars and whisked off to the Central Bank. In August, the government invited world renowned art and jewelry dealer Christie’s to appraise the collection. The Christie’s team was headed by then head of jewelry sales, Rusell Fogarty and international director chairman Francois Curiel. Together with representatives of the PCGG   and customs officials, they carefully inspected the “loot” of 60 pieces of jewelry and some loose stones. According to a witness (the appraisal was not made known to the public at that time), there were audible gasps as each item was taken out of their packet. Among the items that bedazzled the appraisers were a Persian- style necklace with over 100 carats of yellow and pinkish diamonds of various sizes, shapes and cuts; a 93 carat diamond necklace by Italian jeweller Buccelati (the Buccelati name has been known to the jewelry and silver world since the mid 18^th century!); a bracelet with a solitary marquise diamond of 30.56 carats that still had the price tag from Bulgari attached to it: the price $1 M; a pair of combination diamond and emerald earrings of which the emeralds (3 carats each) from Van Cleef and Arpels were of such rare clarity, color and quality that the appraisers were dumfounded and could not put a price on them without further research. The diamond droplets were 3 carats each.

The rest of the stash sparkled with an array of brooches, necklaces and earrings made of diamonds, rubys and emeralds the size of coins, ranging from 3, 7, 15, 82 to a hundred carats each (just for perspective: ordinary blokes like us who get our wives jewelry will sweat it out for a .25 or 1 carat piece in a downtown mall—and we’re not talking of “pure” cuts). Christie’s never made public their appraisal of the jewelry but estimates from the PCGG range from 4.7 to 5 million dollars at the time. The Roumeliotes collection was only one of several seized from the Marcoses when they fled. Of course Imelda denied owning the Roumeliotes collection even claiming that they were not real but made of paste. More than a decade later, sometime during his presidential term, Joseph Estrada ordered two Customs officers to meet Imelda at her Makati condo. He gave them specific instructions to accommodate her because “she only wants a few pieces (of jewelry) back, those that have sentimental value for her.” Soon afterwards, one of the two officers was named deputy collector, with a promise of further promotion to Customs deputy commissioner had Estrada not been ousted. So if you happen to bump into Imelda at shop 168 in Divisoria and see her sporting a pair of emerald droplet earrings, tell her to swap them for those kitschy costume jewelry pieces from one of the stalls, anyway hers is just made of  “paste”.

Source: http://indiosbravos.blog.com/2011/04/13/recyclablog-2my-big-fat-greek-accomplice/