Said Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in his inaugural address, referring to his father. And... there to witness it all, Imelda Marcos, still alive and kicking — I say "kicking" to call attention to her feet, famously possessed of a multitude of shoes — at 92.
Marcos Jr. — AKA Bongbong — is quoted in "Imelda Marcos watches son ‘Bongbong’ sworn in as president of the Philippines/Ceremony marks return to power of Asia’s most notorious political families" (London Times).
[I]t is unclear what a second Marcos government will mean in concrete terms. The prospect horrifies many of those who remember his father’s reign, first as elected president, then as a ruthless dictator, from 1965 to 1986. Marcos Jr went into exile in Hawaii with his family. His father died in 1991 after being exposed as a kleptocrat who had plundered the state coffers of as much as $10 billion.
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First, many people do love kings and dynasties. Second, the definition of graft is fluid if you have totalitarian soul...kleptocrat...king...president...no difference...
Never underestimate the public’s willingness to elect thieves and idiots. Some times a two-for-one deal. Waving at Biden as I exit the room.
Commander Bulkeley who got MacArthur out of the Philippines in 1942, also was given the task of getting President Quezon out lest he align himself with the Japanese. If Quezon resisted, Bulkeley was authorized to use force.
Funny that he has the same nickname as our President.
Maybe they shouldn't send their best to the US.
But I'm glad they do.
“Mama always said you could tell an awful lot about a person by the kind of shoes they wear.”
It's been just about exactly 50 years since I packed up all the possessions of a lieutenant commander in the Navy and his wife who were moving from Virginia Beach to his next duty station. (I was paying my way through college working 60-80 hours a week every summer for Mayflower.)
The wife had 218 pairs of shoes: also 50+ sweaters, though I don't remember exactly how many. (When we saw how many of each were in the walk-in closet, we decided to count them as we packed.) I thought then, and still think, that 800 pairs of shoes for the wife of the dictator of a country with more than 50,000,000 people was less extravagant than 218 pairs of shoes for the wife of a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy (equivalent to a major in the Army).
By the way I figure there's at least a 1-in-100 chance that one of the other commentators will now say "Hey! That was my mom!" or "That was my best friend's mom!".
Funny that he has the same nickname as our President. That's hilarious!
Well, we can make fun of the Filipinos until Hunter Biden is sworn into Oval Office in 2036.
My wife was a young adult in the Philippines during the Marcos dictatorship. She describes the nation was completely corrupt from the lowest petty official and cop through Marcos himself. Paying bribes was the cost of accomplish any government function, and there was no trust in the society. If a building contractor bribed the government inspector to ignore the lack of rebar in concrete and the building collapsed during one of the frequent earthquakes, oh well. People in America don’t understand what a zero trust society is like, nor do they realize the danger as the Democrats and the all powerful bureaucracy push us closer to becoming one.
"By the way I figure there's at least a 1-in-100 chance that one of the other commentators will now say "Hey! That was my mom!" or "That was my best friend's mom!"."
That was me, before my transition. Thanks for moving my stuff. Now that I'm a man, I only have three pairs of shoes.
My comment got eaten, so here’s a second try. In the early 1990s we toured Malacanang Palace. Pres. Corazon Aquino allowed these tours to show the corruption of the Marcos regime. We did see the shoes and dozens of racks of hand-made gowns, worn only once, if ever. But the most striking to us was the two large open crates, about 4 ft by 4 ft by 4ft. They were filled to overflowing with jewelry cases from top-notch places like Harry Winston and Cartier. These cases were all empty as Imelda had stripped them of their precious contents and taken them when she and Ferdinand fled to the USA. That lady has yet to spend a single day in jail.
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