EVITA AND IMELDA
EVITA, the play is in town. Imelda is not but she’s still playing to a full house from the radio stations of Metro Manila to the “Tonight Show” of Johnny Carson. Haven’t we, bitchy that we are, waited for this moment when Evita would hit town and hit hard — really where it hurts — Imelda, too?
“They’re alike — rotten” is what we’ve wanted to say all the time when we couldn’t because it would have been hazardous to our health.
How are they alike, then? Background: poor, rejected by the affluent and families with old pedigreed names; born of a second wife; hence, driven, to match burning desire to get out of misery, become rich and famous, maybe go international.
With a lot of help from their beautiful faces (in Evita’s case, body, too), they make it to the top of the ritz, to the lineup of newsmakers of the world.
They had their memorable moments… Evita would pass someone who was ill, pass a hand over him and he would be healed. Imelda, before a conference of scientists from around the world startled this learned body with the announcement that the Philippines through a cosmic hole in the sky was the recipient of a multitude of blessings.
The beauties Evita and Imelda married to powerful men began to wield power themselves and to believe that they alone were the saviors of their people. Great going, ladies except that they believed a lie and did not know it.
In the end, Evita wanted to become vice-president; Imelda (with no thanks to the “people’s clamor” which she conveniently invoked after denying she wanted a position and then got it, anyway) wanted to be president. End of parallel lives.
There are definitely more similarities between the lives of the two women than there are differences but the latter appear more significant. In their rise to power, both First Ladies discover people and how to use them. Evita used Argentina’s descamisados by working with them, the labor unions, giving them money — outright doleouts. Imelda discovers people, too but they are the likes of George Hamilton, Cristina Ford, Gina Lollobrigida (and to a certain extent, Dovie Beams). She gave these people free rides on Philippine Air Lines, billeted them at the Coconut Palace and discoed with them even unto the rattling of the Palace chandeliers of the Bacolor Rococo style. When she did talk of “my poor people in my little country” — with matching sad face — it was just talk. It was just so she could put on that face that really does become her and call her husband’s repressive regime Compassionate Society.
While Evita made Peron by influencing him to work with Argentina’s descamisados, Imelda unmade Ferdinand Marcos through sheer hard work at getting rich on other people’s money. Evita influenced Peron; when she died, he fell from grace and power. Evita was Peron’s tower of strength. From the evidence at hand (thanks to the sleuthing of Chit Pedrosa), Marcos influenced Imelda into incredible (or Marcosian) heights of conjugal corruption. When God was not looking, Marcos made the shy, sweet girl that was Imelda into his own image.
Another difference: Evita Peron appears to be mysterious and thus makes a more fascinating study (and Broadway musicale as compared to “Meldy” and “Don’t Cry for me, Argentina” as compared to “Dahil sa Iyo”). There were two sides to her. There are those who denounce her as a slut and others who swear that she’s a saint and have even petitioned the Vatican to beatify her.
Joy Virata who alternates with Baby Barredo in the title role of Repertory’s Evita observes that “there’s a side to Evita you can cry for”. Of course, there’s a side to Imelda that we can cry for: had she continued to reside here.
Imelda’s life, on the other hand, has become an open bank book that doesn’t make a good read because one can’t suspend disbelief at the figures “thereat” (to borrow her favored adverb).
Having said all that, I must be fair and say too that for better or for worse, Evita and Imelda have left their mark in history while most of us women — alas and alack — have only left lipstick marks on the men we’ve loved.
