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Living and sharing thoughts with my mother since she
had been widowed has gifted me with a fresher and fuller perspective
on aging, life and love. I also have lately enjoyed some
stimulating conversation with former first lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos.
This Valentine week, I thought I might share some of my observations
about them and love.
What struck me most about the
former President Ferdinand E. Marcos’ relationship with Imelda is
that he revealed to her only his best side. Unlike his
behavior with his bosom buddies, he seemed never to ever let his
guard down.
This was so when they first met
in Congress in 1954. Ferdinand, as a minority congressman, was
delivering one of his fiery speeches against an administration
Magsaysay bill, when he spotted her in the gallery. She was
there to watch her cousin, Speaker pro tempore Daniel Romualdez,
preside over Congress. He argued particularly eloquently that
day. They were introduced later that evening in the cafeteria,
after which he told his friends that he was in love.
They married eleven days later.
After the meeting in Congress, he pursued her relentlessly following
her up to Baguio. When he proposed marriage, he declared his
undying love for her. Imelda replied: “How could this be
true love if you had only just met me?”
He countered that he had known
her a long time. Firmly etched in his mind was the image of
the ideal woman or soul mate. This image accompanied him in
his waking life and haunted him in his dreams. Her lovely
visage first glimpsed in the gallery was the perfect match.
On one date, he gazed at her
intently and spoke sweet nothings incessantly. Both of them ordered
chicken. So enamored was he that he did not even touch his
food. Meanwhile, Imelda was so hungry that she ate what he
ordered. He did not notice. That was the clincher.
He must truly be in love with me, she thought, because he is blind
to all my flaws.
That captured the essence of
their relationship. Even during marriage, he would either wax
poetic or articulate. The dinners with their children were
formal occasions, where he would lecture them in law, politics or
military science. He was like that even in the privacy of
their bedroom.
My father, former Chief Justice
Enrique M. Fernando, was not as confident about his charms or looks.
Despite his Castilian features and aquiline nose, he was cautious
and prudent in his approach. He impressed women mainly with
his mind.
Fortunately for him, my mother
was his student. This also made my mother’s classmates
fortunate and doubly so. He was the quintessential terror in
law school. With her in class, not only was he in a remarkably
good mood but also wittier and more brilliant than usual, cracking
hilarious jokes or showing off his photographic memory by quoting
extensively from the opinions of Justices Cardozo or Holmes.
His circumspection was legendary.
He was cryptic in his declarations of love, becoming more forthright
the more certain it would be requited. He gave her the book
entitled, I love you, I love you, I love you, with the dedication,
“This is one time you should judge a book by its cover,”
unsigned.
He proposed marriage by gifting
her with the novel, The Best Is Yet, this time undedicated and
unsigned. To make sure she got the message, he next gave her
Immortal Wife, which he dedicated “To whom the opportunity has
been offered,” again unsigned.
Now that he is gone, she, at 84,
retains an idealized image of him and their relationship. When she
cannot sleep at night, she rereads his letters from Yale.
One of her favorites concerns the
time when she encouraged him to stay in Yale to finish his
doctorate, after he obtained his Masters in 1948. He replied:
“I find myself unable to see the merit of such a course . . .
My head, I think, is all right. And my heart, too. But
if you want to dull the former and break the latter, then insist on
exiling myself from you longer than is absolutely necessary.”
They married six months later.
My mother is preoccupied, some
would say obsessed, about two things. First, she constantly
worries about how they can be together in Loyola Memorial Park upon
her passing. He wished to be buried there beside my elder
brother. He is presently interred in the Libingan ng Mga
Bayani. The other is to vitalize his foundation.
At 78, Imelda too lives only for
two things. The first is to restore her husband’s honor and
greatness. The reason why she has never agreed to a compromise
with the government is because she remains firmly convinced that he
neither committed graft nor violated human rights. The other
is to uplift the Filipino people by making operational the Marcos
Foundation, to which he left the bulk of his estate. With the
government harassment, she is unable to implement her project she
titled, No Filipino Poor.
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