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.

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.