Film Review: The Kingmaker

Imelda Marcos tells her side of the story in The Kingmaker

As a teenager in the 1980s, I learned about Imelda Marcos and her husband, then president of the Philippines, through my two classmates. I later found out they and their families had fled the country to get away from Marcos, and later watching news reports of their wealth excesses, it was a wonder how they amassed so much wealth, while most the country was literally dirt poor.

My first (and so far only) visit to the Philippines was in 2017 for a food trade show in Manila. What shocked me the most was seeing metal detectors everywhere -- including our hotel The Peninsula Manila -- and we were lucky to be staying in Makati, the business district, but also where the wealthy live.

Greenfield reveals Marcos' inconsistencies

Our escort on the trip from Hong Kong was staying with her uncle and she told us they hardly every went out of their family compound. But if they did, her uncle always brought his gun with him...

So I was very curious to watch The Kingmaker, a documentary by Lauren Greenfield about Imelda Marcos. At first I thought it was just going to be about her, but it was much more than that.

The opening scene shows a drone shot of the shanty towns in the foreground, with glimmering towers in the back. Imelda Marcos is in a chauffeured car and when it stops at a red light, she opens the door and hands out crisp bills to poor children with outstretched, dirty hands.

She later says that the Philippines was not like this when her husband was in power.

We see her in her home, immaculately dressed, an army of nervous servants attending to her, from holding her arm to adding more powder to her face that still retains her beauty.

When she was eight years old she was orphaned when her mother died, but later became a beauty queen who caught the attention of Ferdinand Marcos who was a senator at the time. Eleven days later they were married.

Marcos enjoyed being First lady

One can tell Marcos is keen to tell her version of the story, how she was "a mother" to the country and gave it love. She did this buy buying wild animals from Africa and had them deposited on an island, but not before kicking out 254 inhabitants there; she bought at least four properties in New York City, a home in Beverly Hills that was strangely in actor George Hamilton's name, and the numerous dresses, thousands of pairs of shoes and the jewellery!

When the country revolted against the Marcoses and they had to flee to Hawaii in 1986, she slipped lots of glittering baubles into bags holding baby diapers that was put onto the plane. On camera she says that jewellery helped pay for legal fees. Yowsers.

Marcos also likes to boast who she knew, and Greenfield finds the archival footage to prove she met people like Muammar Gadafi, Saddam Hussein, and even Mao Zedong, where there is a clip of him kissing her hand. She considered them all friends...

While she maintains she and her husband did everything for the good of the Philippines, others say otherwise in The Kingmaker.

One of the giraffes caught in Africa for Marcos

When Marcos declared martial law in 1972, he claimed he did this due to a "communist threat" though opposition leaders said he used this to consolidate his power and shut down criticism. Fourteen out of 15 newspapers were shut down and those rebels trying to oust him were summarily executed.

One journalist recalls being physically tortured by having to crouch and his shins were beaten; his younger brother worked for the resistance and was caught and killed. A teacher recalled being tortured by electric batons -- by her own students, and an activist talked about being sexually assaulted by a group of men.

These testimonies are a stark contrast to the romantic picture Imelda Marcos tries to portray about her and her husband's grip on power. 

But there is more.

She tried to engineer the continuation of the Marcos dynasty by having her son, Bongbong become president, but first become vice president in the 2016 elections, but he lost by over 260,000 votes and even refused to concede.

The position of vice president is also elected, not chosen by the president like in the United States.

Bongbong tried and failed to win vice presidency

Rodrigo Duterte came to power, but it is revealed in The Kingmaker, that he also comes from a wealthy family, his father once served in Marcos' administration, and the late president's daughter Imee helped Duterte win.

And now he rules with impunity, killing tens of thousands of people on a supposed war on drugs without trying them in court.

So the Marcoses still have their wealth and power, fuelled by selling off whatever expensive trinkets they accumulated to keep their political dreams alive, including a Monet that was sold for over US$32 million.

And what happened to those African animals, the zebras and giraffes?

No one knew how to look after them, and they were literally left on their own, inbreeding which led to physical problems in the giraffes like shorter necks and not even being able to hold them upright. The human inhabitants there are resentful of the animals given priority over them.

Marcos below her Picasso and priceless art

Meanwhile the next generation are being taught revisionist history and in class they parrot how martial law was good for the country, and have no idea what really happened. Sound familiar?

It is quite eerie to see how the Marcos' have control over numerous institutions in the Philippines thanks to their enormous wealth and influence. As one critic points out, as long as they have money, they will continue to call the shots in Philippine politics. 

As she says being First Lady in the beginning of the documentary, "People underestimate women, and sometimes that's useful." 

That was Marcos' strategy, and she will continue using it to get what she wants -- power, wealth and more power.

Hong Kong's Inept Leadership on Coronavirus

About half of people I saw today wore masks as a precaution in public areas

After last night's news of Hong Kong having two confirmed cases of patients testing positive with the coronavirus, this morning many people wore surgical masks in public. Some of my colleagues wore masks because they were coughing, or others wore the protective gear to prevent themselves from catching anything.

Not having been here in 2003, I was reticent about what to do -- was it that serious? But it seems like it is better to err on the side of caution these days. You never know if the person next to you isn't feeling well.

Why can the MTR be stopped and not the high speed rail?

However, the supply of masks has run out in many pharmacies in Hong Kong, making people panic even more.

But in a way they have a right to worry as the Hong Kong government seems to take a laissez-faire attitude towards the coronavirus that originated from an animal market in Wuhan, in Hubei province.

Even health experts are chastising the government for acting so slowly in trying to contain or prevent cases from coming into the city.

"There is so much more the Hong Kong government can do. They have done so little so far," said Dr. Arisina Ma Chung-yee, president of the Hong Kong Public Doctors' Association. "The checks at the border are insufficient."

Dr Ho Pak-leung says the government needs to do more

Previously there was no need for passengers traveling on the high speed rail to the West Kowloon terminus to fill out a health card which is outrageous. It turns out many of the suspected and confirmed cases were of passengers who took this mode of transport to Hong Kong. If they don't fill out health cards with contact details, how can the authorities track them down as soon as possible?

And with the first suspected case in Hong Kong, why did the authorities allow them to leave Hong Kong and go to Manila to possibly infect another country? It boggles the mind.

Ma also urged the government to consider giving away free masks in public facilities like libraries, to prevent the spread of germs.

Dr Ho Pak-leung from the University of Hong Kong said the government was now doing worse than in 2003, when the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) killed 299 people in the city. At the time everyone entering Hong Kong had to fill out a health form.

"Hong Kong needs to wake up. We all need to wake up. The situation right now is very severe," he said.

People want to travel home for Chinese New Year

Ho added the government should issue the black travel alert to Wuhan, meaning everyone should avoid going there; at present there is only a black alert for Syria.

He also said doctors had claimed many sick mainlanders were trying to come to Hong Kong to seek medical treatment, and this showed the need to step up border controls.

But perhaps the government is caught flat-footed because our fearless leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is not here but in Davos trying to sell Hong Kong, when she should be delegating more power to her ministers to do everything possible to minimize the coronavirus from spreading in the city. But it seems our city is being run top-down, and since our chief executive isn't here, her ministers don't seem to know what to do.

Political scientist and commentator Simon Shen Xu Hui points out that the MTR can be shut down at anytime because of the protests, but nothing has been done to shut down the high speed rail to prevent the coronavirus from coming into Hong Kong.

A suspected case in Central startles people in the area

But perhaps even worse is mainlanders in China are unaware or not given enough information about the seriousness of the Wuhan coronavirus. For example on tonight's news on CCTV, President Xi Jinping's speech at a Spring Festival banquet was the top story, followed by New Year cultural activities around the country, a happy report on people at Beijing West train station traveling home, and a story on how the rehearsals are going for the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. The Wuhan coronavirus was the fifth news item.

No wonder people are trying to get into Hong Kong to find out what's really going on.

This outbreak is really bad timing -- with Chinese New Year days away, how do you prevent masses of people from congregating or traveling around?

After dinner I took a stroll along the waterfront and one woman was running with a mask on which seemed like overkill. How was she able to breathe? In any event, it looks like wearing masks in public will be de rigeur in the next few weeks at least...

Luggage Crisis Diverted

Boarding AC7 on a sunny day at Vancouver International Airport

Today, Saturday, was a busy traveling day for many passengers, getting home before starting work and school. The flights to Asia were very full, including those to Taiwan, with the elections on January 11. Anyone who was born there, even if they haven't lived there for a long time are eligible to vote.

In any event I had trouble checking in online with Air Canada the day before, so I decided to go to the airport a bit earlier. I tried again at the airport kiosk and it still didn't work so I had to wait in line for the counter. Luckily the line went relatively fast and I finally checked in. Or so I thought I did.

I was unable to check-in using the kiosks and had to line up

The ground staff had already put the luggage tag on my suitcase and sent it off when I walked away and looked at my boarding pass. It didn't have my name on it, but someone else's!

I ran back to her and showed her the boarding pass and my passport. She showed a colleague the error who didn't have any decent suggestions, so she contacted her supervisor who was all the way in the domestic departure area.

It turns out this is some technical glitch they have been having since installing new software three months ago.

They had to stop and locate my baggage -- which had a luggage tag going to Manila! They reassured me my suitcase was not going there, but to Hong Kong.

Then they had to issue me a new boarding pass and luggage tag. Once that was sorted I had to go down to the arrivals area and pick up my suitcase at the area where oversized luggage is usually sent. The metal shutters were down, but a few minutes later they came up and I saw a guy on a cart with my luggage!

Then I had to pick up my luggage at a place similar to this one

I grabbed it and went back up to where the supervisor was in the domestic departure area where she stuck on the new luggage tag and then I had to go back to the Air Canada international departures area to drop off my suitcase there! I spent pretty much an hour checking in after all that hassle, which made security look like a breeze.

Next time you travel, check to make sure your name is on the boarding pass! And yes I did get my luggage back in Hong Kong!

Review: The Quest of Alain Ducasse

Ducasse in the farm that grows vegetables for Plaza-Athenee in Paris

Yesterday I happened to see that the documentary, The Quest of Alain Ducasse was showing tonight and decided I had to go see it.

The French chef with 21 Michelin stars under his belt was just in the vicinity last week with the opening of his two restaurants in Morpheus, the latest over-the-top hotel to open in Macau.

So I wanted to know what made the 61-year-old man tick -- and although the film shows scenes of the French chef tasting numerous delicious-looking dishes from Paris to London, to Kyoto and Hong Kong, we don't really know much about Ducasse himself.

There are hardly any biographical details about him, how he was born in 1956 in Orthez, in southwestern France and that it was his grandmother's cooking -- the smells that wafted up into his room -- that got him interested in the kitchen.

Ducasse revolutionized French cuisine, doing away with heavy creams and butter and opting instead for light, rustic cooking that showcases the freshness of the ingredients. He's also gone a step further in making his Parisian restaurant Plaza-Athenee feature vegetables and seafood but no meat.

It is clear he is passionate about what he does -- he insists on servers pouring Champagne in front of guests and will personally rearrange the furniture too. He only has praise for his army of chefs around the world -- there are only minor details to be worked out in their new menu items. The dishes for him are practically perfect. Or is he saying this in front of the camera?

He looks over the Hong Kong skyline at the then Spoon

What was completely glossed over in the documentary was a plane crash he survived in 1984. He and four colleagues were flying in a small plane from St Tropez to Courcheval in the French alps when the weather turned bad. They could have opted to land in Lyon, but they decided to press on when through the clouds they suddenly saw a mountain in front of them and it was too late to divert.

He was thrown out of the cockpit into the trees, the only survivor of the crash, though he lost a lot of blood. It took him months to get over the trauma but it also made him look at life succinctly.

"It helped me to realize what is important and what is not," he has said in an interview. "It taught me to step back from the kitchen, and open my eyes to the vastness of the world."

And so The Quest of Alain Ducasse is a non-stop travelogue of him flying all over the place, constantly in search of new flavours, new ingredients, encouraging his staff and checking out possible business ventures (Mongolia, anyone?). He has even started a culinary school in Manila where some street kids are taken in and trained to become cooks, sponsored by the man himself. He is moved listening to the young women thank him for giving them an opportunity to earn money for their families.

Handing certificates to cooks at his culinary school in Manila

When he visits China, he takes several of his staff to see a sturgeon farm for caviar two hours outside of Shanghai. There's a giant fish farm, rearing sturgeon that are very large. One of the most jaw-dropping scenes is watching a giant sturgeon sliced open, revealing millions of black caviar pearls.

Ducasse has been advocating Chinese caviar for years and only uses them in his restaurants. In the tasting room they use mother of pearl spoons to scoop out large dollops and everyone marvels at how sublime they taste.

There are no scenes about his private life, only to note that he has four children, three of whom are young children.

After watching the film I wasn't hungry, which was disappointing, but also how little I have accomplished next to this man who has how many restaurants around the world?

But it's his relentless passion for food, curiosity about new things that make me realize that this is what keeps him going everyday. The old adage "Do what you love" definitely applies here and Ducasse is an excellent example.

The Quest of Alain Ducasse
Directed by Gilles de Maistre
84 Minutes

Picture of the Day: Sunset from the Harbour

Looking back at Hong Kong Island (left) and Kowloon close together

A work contact I met in Manila came to Hong Kong for a short trip and invited me on a boat trip around the harbour.

She was amused that I and two other Hong Kong-based guests had never done this before -- but it is expensive, and also something we wouldn't think of doing.

However, if you have the means, it's a fantastic way to appreciate the city.

The weather cooperated too -- originally it was forecast for sunny periods and isolated showers. But in the end it was sunny and hot, with hardly any clouds in the sky.

The boat was docked at Central Harbourfront Pier 9 and then we set off eastwards practically to Shaukeiwan, hung around the Kai Tak cruise terminal, then towards Tsim Sha Tsui before finishing in the evening in Causeway Bay.

Here's my sunset shot looking back on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.

We appreciated the opportunity to see the city from the perspective of the water, while our hostess kept exclaiming how pretty Hong Kong's skyline was.

We never tire of looking at it, but we sometimes don't stop to look because we're so busy. But today was a memorable day to do nothing else but take it all in.

Manila Impressions

Hitching a ride on the back of an already full Jeepney in Manila

I recently got back from a five-day trip to Manila for work and it being my first trip to the Philippines it was an eye opener.

Before I went, I was told horror stories about the notorious traffic jams -- an acquaintance recalled being stuck in a car for two hours and it hardly moved. He gave up going to his destination and instead asked the driver to take him back to his hotel.

Another friend warned me to bring reading material and download a bunch of podcasts to listen to to while away the time stuck in traffic.

But on the whole we were lucky because the distance between our hotel and the conference venue was not too far -- it wasn't close enough to walk, but it took say 20 minutes by car when it probably took 10 minutes without traffic.

On our first day, a pair begging for money from cars idling

We were ferried everywhere by car, and the main reason is safety. A woman who escorted us has Chinese relatives living in Manila. She told us their house is surrounded by a two-storey tall fence and her uncle packs a gun with him every time they go out.

She says that many years ago things were worse -- her two young cousins were almost kidnapped while their chauffeur was driving them, but luckily knew he was being followed and managed to shake off the shady characters.

I asked if Rodrigo Duterte had anything to do with the country being safer, but our Filipina fixer said it was more because the economy was improving and people were earning more money.

Nevertheless, I saw many cars and Jeepneys -- pimped up long vehicles where people sat in the back -- a kind of cramped minibus -- had Duterte stickers on them.

They would like to believe that he represents them, and not the super rich.

When I was in high school in the 1980s, I had a few Filipina friends. At first they didn't explain why they were in Vancouver, but later I found out one of the families was anti-Marcos and was waiting for him to go. The others probably had the same political leanings.

In the business district, Manila is sleek and modern

I later found out on this trip that when Marcos came to power, he immediately started going after the powerful families that lived in the south who made their money through sugar cane plantations.

I heard that these families run the plantation like fiefdoms, paying their workers low wages so their children couldn't be well educated, but always making sure they give each family a turkey for Christmas.

This uneven development and the wealth gap is very similar to China's, though the Philippines have democracy, and China does not. In both cases, however, corruption still hasn't been eradicated.

Philippine culture is a mixed-up one, thanks to the colonization of the Spanish for over 300 years. As one Fliipina put it, the Spanish only pushed religion on the colony, and so the Philippines is the largest population of Roman Catholics in the world, thanks to birth control being illegal...

After the Spanish, the Americans came for about 50 years, and gave them American English, rule of law, Spam and democracy. It is only in the last few years that the Philippines is starting to figure out its own identity and move away from its colonial mentality and become proud of its heritage.

This is reflected in the food, that has a combination of Spanish, American, Japanese and Chinese influences. And now some progressive chefs are looking to indigenous ingredients to find new flavours.

A craft beer bar in Poblacion with friendly staff

It's interesting to see young Filipino chefs keen on coming back home after having learned abroad, and wanting to start a restaurant, cafe or a bar. Perhaps it's because rents are cheap and so is labour. But perhaps those are the best conditions to be able to experiment and take some risks.

In Hong Kong the start-up costs are so prohibitive that it's way too risky to even try.

The ironic thing is that rich Filipinos like to go to Hong Kong to see what the trends are, when we ourselves look elsewhere!

So I am well aware that my trip was the sanitized version of Manila, and that we haven't even seen how the other side lives. But we managed to try a few trendy places in Poblacion, a red light district that is becoming more gentrified, and the food was not only delicious but very cheap compared to Hong Kong.

Therefore if someone has a decent-paying job, they can afford to eat relatively well.

The people are nice on the whole, but not very bright at times. And things do go on Philippine time -- ie. at least 30 minutes later. It requires a lot of patience and gentle pushing to get things done -- berating them does nothing.

Another thing is that during this conference, I saw a lot of women making high-level decisions. They seem to be the ones getting things done. A Filipina explained to me that it's because the Philippines is a matriarchal society, and so things are done from a practical standpoint because the men are too lazy, and also women make decisions behind the scenes, which is totally acceptable.

It's fascinating to watch these movers and shakers, and I wonder if I'll be back again to discover more of this city and its people.

Reversal of Fortune?

Steve Wynn unveils four Qing Dynasty vases with then CE Edmund Ho

In July 2011, casino magnate Steve Wynn purchased four rare porcelain baluster vases from the Qing Dynasty at Christie's auction in London for $12.8 million, several times more than the pre-sale estimate.

He has said that he is committed to returning Chinese treasures back to China, and this quartet of vases was donated to the Macau Special Administrative Region, where they are in a permanent collection of the Cultural Affairs Bureau's Macao Museum.

Looking back, the PR stunt seems to have been Wynn's attempt at cultivating guanxi with the mainland in the hopes it would lead to even better business in the future.

Stanley Ho with the horse's head he bought at auction in 2007

That's what Stanley Ho did too when he repatriated two animal heads that were looted from the Summer Palace in the 1800s. Ho purchased the boar's head in 2003 from a New York collector and donated it to China, and again the horse's head in 2007 from a private collection in Taiwan.

But having spent millions of dollars, what has come of it?

Instead of hoping for the investment -- oops repatriation of treasures -- to pay off, things have gone south in a really bad way.

Chinese President Xi Jinping continues to wage his battle against corruption and has not only settled his sights on gambling tables in Macau -- but worldwide.

"Some foreign countries see our nation as an enormous market, as we have investigated a series of cases," said Hua Jingfeng, a deputy bureau chief at the Ministry of Public Security. "A fair number of neighbouring countries have casinos, as they have set up offices in China to attract and drum up interest from Chinese citizens to go abroad and gamble. This will also be an area that we will crack down on."

Can we hear the pin drop in Macau, Manila, Singapore and Las Vegas?

Not only is the Chinese government cracking down on gamblers, but also the casinos trying to promote themselves. The authorities will make it harder for these "resorts" to advertise from billboards to print and even text messages.

Construction continues at Wynn Palace, phase two at Cotai

There will also be further restrictions on visa requirements, and the flow of money will be tracked by officials through UnionPay, the only domestic credit card in China.

Gambling revenues in Macau have dropped for the first time since foreign operators were allowed into the former Portuguese colony in 2002. In December alone gaming revenues plunged 30 percent.

The anti-corruption crackdown has scared the high rollers, who depended on junkets to not only get them to Macau, but also supply a steady stream of credit. Some 16 percent of junket operators shut down last year, some carrying debts.

Did Wynn know this was coming? If there were any signs, he didn't see them at all.

"China remains a big question mark. We have more questions than answers," he admitted during a conference call earlier this month. "Thousands of our Macau employees are anticipating promotion and a better life because of Wynn Palace... We have learned in the last 12 years to behave in China, and that is to listen carefully to what the leadership says and to conform with the program as we are their guest," Wynn said. "We wait for an announcement from the government with baited breath... What we are seeing in China is an entrenchment."

Wynn could only say that he hoped "our ambitions to grow in Macau will continue to develop".

Does that sound like cautious optimism or completely blindsided?

So much for the vases and the animal heads. Millions of dollars do not buy security.

While the big gamblers are barely trickling in these days, casino operators in Macau are now wondering if their $23 billion investment in their second phases to expand gambling tables and entertainment options will pay off now...