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 5: The Marcos Sex Tapes…That’s Hot!

(FIRST POSTED JAN ’08)

In February of 1971, radical students barricaded the University of the Philippines, fended off the QC police and metrocom, and staged what would be known as the “Diliman Commune”. Taking control of the campus grounds and the state university’s radio DZUP, they broadcast, on loop, a tape of an alleged tryst of Ferdinand Marcos and his paramour, American B-actress Dovie Beams. In the audio tape, Marcos was pleading with Beams to perform oral sex (I wonder if Marcos had some presidential cigars too…hmmm). The tape also featured FM’s vocal prowess as he serenaded his Lovey Dovie with an incredibly romantic Ilokano love song: Pamulinawen.. (yah, that probably was the “Your Body is A Wonderland” of that era). 

Dovie Beams came to the Philippines in 1969 to film the war picture “Maharlika”. Yes, based on the World War 2 exploits of a dashing lieutenant named Ferdinand Marcos and the unit he led: Maharlika. It starred other American lightweights but surprisingly also featured a performance by Oscar award-winning actor Broderick Crawford. Crawford won as Best Actor for his role as Willie Stark in the 1950 Oscar Best Picture “All The King’s Men” (recently re-made by Steve Zaillian, starring Sean Penn). Maharlika was co-produced by Quentin Tarantino’s idol, Cirio Santiago and a certain Val D’ Auvrey (who never produced another film thereafter). The film was completed but never released here nor in the U.S.. As the rumors about FM’s relationship with the bombshell Beams swirled about town, a miffed Imelda allegedly nixed the showing of “Maharlika”. Beams hurriedly left the country in 1971, and was never heard from again. “Maharlika” resurfaced in 1985, on European videoshelves as “Guerilla Strike Force”. FM should be grateful that cellphones nor the internet were not yet invented at that time otherwise you can bet that the FM-Dovie Beams would have been a big hit on YouTube next to the dancing inmates of Cebu. So who secretly taped the two? Well, at that time, everybody’s favorite usual suspect: the CIA. Allegedly, with the knowledge of Beams, as blackmail against FM so the U.S. could have him by, pardon the pun, the balls, during this critical and paranoid Vietnam War era.

Source: http://indiosbravos.blog.com/2011/04/25/recyclablog-5-the-marcos-sex-tapes-thats-hot/

RECYCLABLOG #3: Marcos Sex Files: Matilda Waltzes with the Dictator

Does the name Evelin Hegyesi ring a bell? If it does, that means you probably have an archive of Playboy magazines dating back to the 70′s. Evelin Hegyesi is a former Sydney model who once graced the pages of Playboy and modeled mink bikinis. She also once stole the heart of Ferdinand Marcos (pre-Dovie Beams). The two are said to have met while she was working as a model in Paris in 1970. She was at a fashion show and was introduced to president Marcos and “struck an immediate rapport”. Hegyesi thereafter would frequent Manila, trysting with Apo Ferdie at a “safehouse” somewhere in Forbes. She then got pregnant and gave birth to a daughter on April 1971. 

A Marcos lovechild? Well, her daughter’s name is Analisa Josefa (pic on the right with partner Dean Fleming). Josefa is the name of Marcos’s mother. Curiously also, when Swiss authorities lifted their notorious bank secrecy laws, international investigators found an “Australian” link to one of Marcos’s secret accounts. Soon after Evelin Hegyesi gave birth in 1971, Marcos signed papers that made Ms Hegyesi’s company, Austraphil Pty Ltd, the “sole and only beneficiary” of one of his fronts, the Azio Foundation. Hegyesi set up Austraphil on October 14, 1970 when she was just 23 years old and three months pregnant. Money was regularly transferred from this Marcos account to the accounts of Evelin Hegyesi only terminating when Marcos died in 1989. 

In February 1993, Evelin took her daughter to Manila to meet the Marcos lawyers and tried to persuade them the pair were entitled to $20 million from the estate. They travelled with Joe Phillips, a financial consultant Evelin had hired to help claim the money from the Marcos estate. The Hegyesis and Mr Phillips met the Marcos family lawyer Manuel Lazaro early in February, 1993. Several of Marcos’s generals were at the meeting. Mr Lazaro told them he accepted Analisa was the daughter of Marcos, but there was no provision for them in Marcos’s will. The meeting was friendly and the three were invited to dinner at Mr Lazaro’s home. Though Evelin and Analisa returned home empty-handed, the two still lead a very posh life. Evelin is now a 57-year old real estate multi-millionaire (thanks to that seed money and sustento from d’ Apo) and Analisa is a socialite living with the son of a racing and fruits market family with an estimated worth of $270 million.

Source: http://indiosbravos.blog.com/2011/04/16/recyclablog-3-marcos-sex-files-matilda-waltzes-with-the-dictator/