VERA Files
Maler, Trinidad, Rayby, Palmy, Vibur, Aguamina, Avertina, Azio, Verzo, Wintrop-Charis, Scolari – the Swiss bank accounts holder Jane Ryan had a knack for inventing swanky names to hide her identity.
With news of the recent demise of Queen Elizabeth II flooding all social media apps, stories of Imelda’s love for royalty have resurfaced. If she were still first lady today, she would have booked a chartered Philippine Airlines flight to London pronto and she could gain entry to the funeral mass on September 19 at Westminster Abbey where government leaders and crowned heads of Europe, Africa and Asia are expected to be present.
Will the Marcoses ever repent their sins of accumulating ill-gotten wealth and corruption? Even with world opprobrium, they have not.
In my column last Monday on the last 24 hours of the Marcoses in Malacañang on Feb. 25, 1986, I shared the narration of the late colonel Arturo C. Aruiza, aide-de-camp of the late president Ferdinand Marcos Sr., in his book “From Malacañang to Makiki” about their problem when the heavily medicated chief executive could […]
I’m re-reading the book “Ferdinand E. Marcos, Malacañang to Makiki” by Col. Arturo C. Aruiza, who served as aide-de-camp and confidant of the late president for 21 years until the latter’s death in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1989.
A Facebook (FB) post resurfaced a claim that had been debunked in 2016 about former presidential sister Kris Aquino “frequently” wearing jewelry sequestered from former first lady Imelda Marcos. On July 3, an FB page uploaded a video bearing a false headline which read: “Nakakagulat! Buong Detalye sa mga Alahas ni Imelda Marcos Na Madalas […]
In his insightful piece in Time Magazine on the election as president of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the ousted dictator, scholar Jonathan Ong said: “To fight back, progressive leaders should advance their own counter-narrative and persuasive vision. But first, they must acknowledge their failure to listen.”
The British Broadcasting Corporation, in a 2014 reportage, said that a group of artworks were seized from Imelda Marcos by order of the court. Among these was a painting that art experts and connoisseurs worldwide recognize as Pablo Picasso’s Femme Couchée VI (Reclining Woman).
If surveys on the fast-approaching elections hold, the Philippines will soon have a president who has difficulty discerning fact from pseudoscience — the way his mother also does.
A creation myth in Philippine folklore, the Marcoses co-opted the Malakas at Maganda myth in the 1970s and anointed themselves as “the strong one” and “ the beautiful one” under “the new society.”