When Liza Araneta Marcos’ husband, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, was elected President of the Philippines, many wondered how the incoming First Lady would play her role, given that the first Mrs. Marcos, First Lady from 31 December 1965 to 25 February 1986, had, for ages, loomed large on the Filipino consciousness.
Imelda had been described as Ferdinand Marcos’ secret weapon whose popularity contributed immensely to his winning the presidential election. Whether true or not, Imelda Marcos went on to capture the hearts and imagination of the Filipino people as she wowed them with her numerous projects, including the mammoth Cultural Center of the Philippines, even as it also served as fodder for the critics of her husband’s administration.
Fast forward to the presidential election of 2022 — what people saw was a Bongbong who chose to fight his detractors by ignoring them. He focused instead on rebuilding a nation that needed to be united if it must overcome the challenges brought by the recent pandemic, not yet totally eradicated despite the wonders of immunization at the time he was about to take his oath of office.
It was the right campaign strategy, for it promised renewal and, more importantly, a break from the past. That Ferdinand Marcos Jr. won the presidency, despite losing in his bid for the vice presidency in the previous national elections, confirms that a large segment of the voting population saw in him the answer to the many ills of our nation.
Beautiful and fragrant First Lady
On the day of the inauguration, Imelda Marcos sat quietly, almost stoically, on the stage, her face showing hints of a smile, and obviously preferring to be a low-key mother, and not as the fabulous Imeldific that had been her trademark because, as she claimed in her heyday as a Human Settlements Minister, “The Filipinos want their First Lady to be beautiful,” which also meant fragrant and, well, bejeweled and dressed to the nines.
Her detractors would say there was so much hunger and poverty, and here she was as though oblivious to the realities of Filipino life.
Imelda Marcos was a voice culture student and an education graduate, the president of the student council of her college, the Rose of Tacloban and a Miss Manila wannabe who, when she came crying to the swashbuckling mayor, was given the title of Muse of Manila.
Imelda Marcos, from day one, was a great beauty and was fated to live her life in an aquarium for neighbors and the public to ogle. Interestingly, amidst the simplicity and humility of circumstances that she experienced in her childhood, she lived close to Malacañang, the stately presidential home which, she did not know then, would become her home for 20 years.
In the meantime, her father, distraught by the loss of his second wife, Imelda’s mother, and financially strapped, brought his family home to Tacloban. Here, the young Meldy would blossom into such an attractive lass, one rich Chinese businessman wanted to marry the young girl who he thought was old enough to be his wife.
Imelda, early on, could sing like a nightingale and, as she herself related, impressed General Douglas MacArthur with her voice. And because of her, Irving Berlin composed the song, “Heaven Watch the Philippines,” after he heard her sing “God Bless the Philippines” to the tune of his composition, “God Bless America.”
Feisty and no-nonsense lawyer
Now comes a feisty, no-nonsense lawyer, who is related to the very rich Aranetas, owners of the vast Cubao commercial center.
The daughter of a handsome “crush ng bayan” basketball player known in his heyday as “twinkle toes” because he pranced around the court like a good dancer, she grew up sheltered, in a manner of speaking.
She attended the Ateneo de Manila for both her undergraduate and law studies. Since she preferred to be low-key, she was not as well-known as her Araneta cousins, including the more famous Mar Roxas and Gaita Fores.
Her mother being a Cacho makes her “royal” on both sides of her family and somehow related to the Cojuangcos, her mother’s sister, Sari, having married Pedro, the eldest brother of Corazon Cojuangco Aquino.
How exactly does one regard Liza Marcos-Araneta? And how does she differ from Mrs. Marcos who impressed me while she was on the dance floor tripping the light fantastic and oh so gracefully and astoundingly, doing the tango and chacha with an equally magnificent Pepe Oledan, who later became our ambassador to Spain?
Like an old friend
The first time I met Imelda Marcos face to face, I had been sent to her Pacific Plaza home by my boss, socialite and future legislator Baby Arenas.
As soon as I was ushered into Mrs. Marcos’ living room, she stood up and said, “Oh, Jojo, it’s nice of you to come.” It was all that she needed to say to make me glow and feel important.
It was said that Imelda remembered names, but meeting her for the first time up close and here she was speaking like she had missed an old friend, wow, I felt like I was on top of the world.
When I was a teenager, in 1973, Renata Tebaldi and Franco Correli, opera singers of world renown, had flown into the country to perform. I attended their concert at the Araneta Coliseum which shook to the rafters when their voices reached their highest crescendo. I was mesmerized by this electrifying performance when, all of a sudden, as I was seated in the back row of the orchestra, flashbulbs popped at my back, making everyone turn around, and lo, there was Imelda Marcos, radiant, beautiful and glowing, smiling charmingly and looking straight at the stage. She had the whole world at that moment to herself. How, tell me, could I forget my first sighting of the iron butterfly?
Voice of reason
Fast forward to 2022, Bongbong Marcos took to the hustings and easily won over his opponent by an overwhelming majority of 58.77 percent or more than 31.6 million votes, and in the election that brought in the fastest result in all of the nation’s political history.
How exactly did Liza contribute to her husband’s win, the victor himself shared, “Liza knows how to put a group, a team together, find good people, put them in the right place, motivate them properly, and she’s always been good at that.” Not surprisingly, given her credentials or qualifications, if that may be said of the First Lady of the land. A lawyer who took her post graduate studies in Criminal Procedure at New York University, a professor at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, St. Louis University and Mariano Marcos State University, media described her as “a significant voice of reason in the campaign.”
If Ferdinand Marcos Sr. had a “secret weapon who sang and wept before crowds” in Imelda Romualdez Marcos, President BBM had an “expert lawyer with extraordinary skills in organization and logistics management” in Liza Araneta Marcos.
(More on Wednesday, 26 July)