I’m Imeldific

 

“I shall return.”

—DOUGLAS McArthur

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

BEFORE I die, I want my son Bongit to become president.

It’s now or never. I can’t wait anymore for 2028; by that time, I might be gone.

The 2022 election is our biggest and most important break and opportunity.

I am willing to release a fortune—or give it back to the people—to ensure my beloved son’s victory by hook or by crook. 

Bongit’s presidency will redeem our family’s name badly besmirched when a so-called “people power” forced us to exile in Hawaii in 1986. 

We will rise from the deep emotional and psychological ruins and restore our honor and pride once Bongit wins. We will be vindicated.

We have been tagged as thieves and plunderers who lived in opulence and extravagance while the people lived in abject poverty; we’ve been falsely accused of horrendous crimes and humiliated all over the world. 

The tremendous shame and embarrassment is now being felt and endured by our grandchildren, who weren’t spared by the wrath of history only because they carry our family name.

Tons of court cases have been thrown against us here and abroad in the last 30 years, but the results only belied all the wild and incredible allegations against us. 

We were never convicted of any crime associated with stealing private or public funds. 

All the charges leveled against us were politically motivated if not marshaled by malicious and envious personalities and malcontents who wanted to foment hatred and destruction in our society. 

For the last 35 years, we’ve been ridiculed and harassed by characters who claimed they and their families were persecuted and their human rights violated during the Martial Law years. 

These were the bad elements and troublemakers who wanted to topple our duly constituted government during my husband’s fabulous presidency. 

Many of them were wayward activists, political sycophants, mercenaries and opportunists, anti-social hooligans, and hard-line communists who agitated to oppose and hostage the New Society, the centerpiece program of my great husband in the 70’s.

Their missing loved ones weren’t kidnapped and tortured by abusive military and police scalawags during the Martial Law; they just left their houses and communities on their own volition and may now be silently living in comfort abroad. We didn’t kill any person who opposed my husband’s autocratic government. We didn’t suppress and curtail the freedom of the press and expression. We never “silenced” the critical media. We never padlocked the legislature. What the country needed at that time was a national discipline and an iron hand leadership to save our democracy.     

By the way, they also strongly resisted and rejected any attempt by members of our family to seek a public office after we came back from Hawaii to rejoin the mainstream, reinstate our pride and dignity, rebuild our epitaph, restore our connections socially, economically, politically—and reclaim everything that rightly, lawfully, and morally belonged to us that were illegally, forcibly and arbitrarily taken away from us.

They even questioned the academic achievements of my children who all finished their degrees with flying colors in the best universities in London and the US.

We have suffered so much. Enough is enough. The last thing our tormented country needs today amid the pandemic is disunity, a Frankenstein-like leadership, paying homage to false political demigods and their ass-lickers, political cannibalism and voodoo worshipping. 

As a nation we need to survive. We need a fresh start. We need Bongit, my brilliant and beloved son, who has been bored to death doing nothing like a hermit since losing the vice presidential race to Lady Gaga five years ago.

So vote for my son Bongit in 2022. Please, I beg you. Truly yours, I’m Imeldific.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo—Ed)