Meldy and the MDGs

by Che de los Reyes

“JEJEMON” may be a strong contender for 2010’s Word of the Year, but back in the 1980s, it would have been a poor competitor to “Imeldific.”

The term stemmed from then Philippine First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, whose idea of glam bordered on…let’s just say she was a bit over the top, ostentatious, as it were. “Imeldific” gained even more popularity when the Marcoses — who were forced to flee the country in the wake of the EDSA revolution in 1986 — left behind a Palace full of Imelda’s gaudy personal belongings for all the world to gawk at, including her now infamous 3,000 pairs of shoes.

She was, of course, eventually allowed to return to the Philippines, along with her children, grandchildren, and her dead husband. But for the last several years, it seemed Tita Meldy was all done with politics. In fact, she has been more known as the lola of commercial and ramp model Borgy Manotoc (she could have also been Lady Gaga’s grandmother in a previous life).

Then again, in this country where people are generally resigned to accept the absurd, the bizarre can become reality. In the last May elections, three Marcoses were voted into public office: Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. into the Senate, Imelda ‘Imee’ Marcos into the Governor’s Office of Ilocos Norte, and Imelda ‘Meldy’ Marcos into the House of Representatives.

Now Meldy has even become the chairperson of the House Special Committee on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). For someone whose favorite talking points are about “the true, the good, and the beautiful,” Imelda Marcos would now be talking about the poor, the sick, and the out-of-school.

With the upcoming United Nations General Assembly in New York where the global progress on the MDGs would take center stage, talks had been rife about Meldy’s representing the country alongside the son and namesake of her husband’s arch-nemesis, the late Senator Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr., whose assassination triggered the chain of events that led to the end of the Marcos dictatorship.

But Meldy might just have to wait another day to speak to world leaders about eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, improving the health of mothers and babies, and uplifting the education of children. According to Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, President Aquino only wanted one member from the House of Representatives to become part of his “lean delegation.” As of September 15, however, only five days before the UN General Assembly, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. had still not signed any travel authority nor endorsed any member of the House as its official delegate to New York. And since the Department of Foreign Affairs’s deadline was September 14, it is unlikely that anyone from the House of Representatives would be joining the New York summit at all, a staff member from the Office of the Speaker informed the PCIJ.

Mrs. Marcos hopes to take part in the MDG summit in New York

In any case, two weeks before the scheduled New York event, Congresswoman Marcos was dutifully doing the rounds for the MDGs. PCIJ caught up with her during the launch of the 4^th Progress Report on the MDGs last September 8 at Dusit Hotel in Makati. Ramon San Pascual, whose group was at the forefront of the creation of the House Committee on the MDGs in 2004, was also there, so PCIJ asked him about the MDGs as well. San Pascual is the executive director of the advocacy group Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD), which was among those that originally conceptualized the MDG committee and assisted legislators in its initial stages.

Yet for all we know, Imelda Marcos may just surprise everyone with her performance as MDG committee chair. After all, even her late husband realized that there is just no underestimating Meldy.