Shoe-collector Imelda Marcos suffers a sprain

Imelda Marcos, widow of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos, known for her extensive shoe collection, swanky lifestyle, obsession for beauty, and extravagant spending has been admitted for ankle sprains at Makati Medical Center in Manila on Saturday, September 13, 2008.

A faded political figure who never admitted any wrongdoing, the ageing former first lady, counts among the dwindling reminders of the old past who continues to escape the alleged crimes leveled against her after she and her husband were deposed by People Power in 1986.

With practically no accountability on the “congugal dictatorship” which ushered in the government as it is now, she is a top-notched beneficiary of the public’s “forgetfulness and forgiveness” of the past. She and her children roam free with their clout, money, and influence intact; they’re acting like “rehabilitated” members of Philippine society. =0=

======================================================

Ninoy Aquino: undimmed, forever young & at play

“They shall not grow old
As we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them
Nor the hourglass condemn
At the going down of the sun

And at the rising of the sun
We shall greet them in our hearts
Undimmed, forever young and at play
In the fields of the Lord.”

—-Warrior King: The Triumph & Betrayal of An American Commander in Iraq (Sassman, Nathan Lt. Col., Martin Press, NY, 2008, p.293)

“It is even more clear to me now that Ninoy was never really mine or my children’s to lose; he has always belonged to the people he chose to serve and to die for,” former Pres. Corazon (Cory) Aquino said of her husband Benigno (Ninoy ) Aquino whose 25th year of his assassination is being remembered this year.

Ninoy Aquino came home from exile in August 21, 1983 from Boston, USA as the prime political adversary of then Pres. Ferdinand Marcos and wife Imelda Marcos. Upon arrival in Manila, he was escorted by military men and minutes later he was gunned down in the tarmac. Years of investigations of the gruesome killing failed to unmask the top people behind the murder. A lone gunman Rolando Galman, killed with Ninoy at the airport, was blamed for the murder. Ninoy’s martyrdom sparked a series of mass actions and protests against Marcos, forcing him out of Malacanang Palace and ending his dictatorship with Imelda.

Today, trying to bring back her health from treatments for colonic cancer, Cory faces new wounds of the ignominious murder whose real mastermind(s) and killer(s) are still on the loose. As the memory of the bloody shooting fades in the memory of the country, the culprits who escape judgement under the law, have gone old or have died of natural causes.

The Marcos family has been “rehabilitated” with the passage of time, rejoining Philippine politics as though nothing so nefarious and brutal ever happened. The case of Ninoy and the conspiracy behind it have been a metaphor of the Filipinos’ lack of trust in the court system. It speaks of the countless murders left unsolved in the country. Not only is justice slow, it’s riddled with corruption and nepotism that favor the rich and powerful. =0=