From Associated Press:
Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos, who made headlines for her vast shoe collection, is embarking on a new project, a fashion line.
The 77-year-old widow of dictator Ferdinand Marcos told reporters Monday that she planned to launch “The Imelda Collection” of fashion jewelry and accessories on Nov. 18.
Marcos became notorious for her shopping trips to ritzy shops in New York while her country wallowed in poverty under martial law declared by her husband.
What next?
Not from Associated Press:
George W Bush’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, plans to launch her own fashion line.
It will include Ms Rice’s ‘Birth Pangs’ perfume, said to contain real drops of Lebanese children‘s blood.
And ‘Katrina shoes’, referring to when Hurricane Katrina killed thousands of people in the southern US, and Secretary of State Rice, instead of handling the scores of offers of help for the Katrina victims from foreign countries, chose to buy expensive shoes in New York City.
Also:
George W Bush’s Secretary of ‘Defence’, Donald Rumsfeld, today launched his own fashion line.
It includes body armour guaranteed not to stop any bullets.
As the catwalk broke down in the middle of the show, breaking the necks of, and killing, scores of models, Mr Rumsfeld reacted: ‘Stuff happens’; and ‘You have fashion shows with the catwalk you have, not the one you would like to have’.
Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein, partners in crime: here.
Al Jazeera correspondent Veronica Pedrosa confronts former Philippines First Lady Imelda Marcos about her past: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Message about NOW and TOMORROW!
Posted by: “Compañero” companyero@mindspring.com chocoano05
Mon Nov 6, 2006 10:02 pm (PST)
To EVERYONE:
The following is a message from Michael Moore. At the risk
of sounding a tad on the sanctimonious side, I’ve been
canvassing now for three months, will go to a city council
meeting tonight and will be canvassing tomorrow, election
day.
Join me?
This election really IS a matter of life and death, not
only of those hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (who just
love us being there, right?) but also to our civil
liberties. Also to our diginity and that of those whom the
Bush regime has chosen to torture–enough to make the
“founding fathers” roll over in their graves–a policy
which has completely eliminated American credibility in
the rest of the world.
We live in a country which ranks 55th in terms of adult
literacy, and 42nd in childhood mortality. Around 50
million Americans have no or inadequate health coverage.
We are in debt to Mexico and other Third World countries.
(!) And Dick Cheney is making tens of millions of dollars
off of Halliburton which has cases filed against it
because it has overcharged YOU, THE TAXPAYER literally
billions of dollars.
Remember that if you’re watching Monday Night football
(does that still exist?) Follow Michael’s advice. I’ll see
you at the polls tomorrow!
Tim
*****
Friends,
Tomorrow night, those who sent 2,800 of our soldiers to
their deaths — all because of a lie the president
concocted — will find out if America chooses to reward
them — or remove them.
As good as things look for the Democrats, do not pop the
corks and start the partying yet. Do not believe for a
second that the Republicans plan on losing. They will
fight like dogs for the next 24 hours — relentless,
unforgiving, nonstop action to squeeze every last
conservative voter out of the house on election day. While
the rest of us go about our day today, tens of thousands
of Republican volunteers are knocking on doors, making
phone calls, and lining up rides to the polls. They’re not
sleeping, they’re not eating, they’re not even watching
Fox News. A day without Fox News? That’s right, that’s how
insanely dedicated they are.
But the reason they have to work so hard is that, before
they can get the vote out, they first have to completely
turn around the massive public opinion against them.
Almost 60% disapprove of Bush. Over 60% are opposed to the
war. Those are landslide numbers. And the American people
are not going to turn pro-war or into Bush-lovers by
tomorrow morning. So it should be easy for us, right?
Yup. Just like it was when we won the popular vote in 2000
and when we were ahead in the exit polls all day long in
2004. You know the deal — the other side takes no
prisoners. And just when it seems like things are going
our way, the Republicans suddenly, mysteriously win the
election.
Well, it’s not really that mysterious. They’re out there
busting their asses this very minute, right down the
street from you. What are YOU doing? You’re on a computer
reading my cranky letter! Stop reading this! We have only
a few hours left to wrestle control of the Congress away
from these “representatives” who, if returned, will
continue shipping our young men and women over there to
die.
Here’s what I’m imploring you to do right now:
1. Go through your address book on your cell phone and
computer and call/e-mail everyone you know. Tell them how
much it would mean to you if they vote on Tuesday. If they
don’t know where to vote, help them find their polling
place.
2. Contact MoveOn.org ASAP. They will connect you to the
folks who need you to make calls.
3. Contact your local Democratic Party headquarters. There
are close races in nearly every state. They’ll put you to
work — on the ground or on the phones. Or go to the local
HQ for the Dem candidate running for the House of
Representatives or the U.S. Senate and say, “Put me to
work!”
OK, turn off the computer — and I will, too. There’s
serious work to do. The good news? There’s more of us than
there are of them. Let’s prove that, once and for all.
Is there anything more important that you have to do
today? Nothing less than the rest of the world is
depending on us.
Yours,
Michael Moore
http://www.michaelmoore.com
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Manila Times Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Original Filipino flag fading away in US war museum?
SAN FRANCISCO: Tacked inside a wooden display case in a rarely visited corner of the San Francisco War Memorial could be the answer to one of the great mysteries of Philippine history: What happened to the original Filipino flag?
The Philippines’ founding president, Emilio Aguinaldo, famously unfurled the original “Stars and Sun” flag when he declared his nation’s independence from Spain in 1898, but the banner disappeared during the Filipino-American War that followed.
“It is a mystery in the Philippines that historians have been trying to answer for a long time,” said Rudy Asercion, a member of the American Legion’s War Memorial Commission.
Hanging by two thumbtacks in the building’s trophy room is a faded red, white and blue banner that just might be that missing icon.
Asercion said he noticed the artifact while rummaging through the usually locked trophy room last year. He now believes US Gen. Frederick Funston captured the flag during the Filipino-American War and brought it back to San Francisco when he was assigned to the Presidio in 1902. …
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Mark Twain on US-Philippines war: http://www.marxist.com/MiddleEast/iraq_twain_deleon.htm
and http://blondesense.blogspot.com/2005/07/war-prayer.html
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Veronica Pedrosa, whose family was forced into exile by the Philippines’ Marcos regime, confronts Imelda about her past.
This video is also about the culture of impunity in the Philippines, from the time of the Marcos dictatorship to the present.
(There is an interview with Marie Hilao of Karapatan)
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Dictator’s millions belong to bank
SINGAPORE: The High Court ruled today that more than $23 million (£15m) seized from the estate of late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos rightfully belongs to a Philippine bank.
The funds, comprising $16.8m and £4.2m, were part of an illicit fortune that Marcos hid in Swiss bank accounts.
Justice Andrew Ang dismissede rival claims from the Philippine government, a group of human rights victims and five foundations believed to be Marcos fronts.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/122767
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Imelda’s Shoes Falling to Ruin
By Kallie Szczepanski, About.com Guide
September 23, 2012
Current parliamentarian, and widow of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos is still famous world-wide for the massive collection of shoes that she amassed as First Lady of the Philippines in the 1970s and 1980s. However, more than 1,200 pairs of the infamous shoes, as well as clothing once worn by Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos, have suffered flood and termite damage in the basement of the National Museum.
Museum officials are racing to salvage what they can of the Marcos’s shoes and clothing. Once a shocking symbol of presidential excess in an impoverished nation, Imelda’s shoes are now part of a fascinating historical record.
http://asianhistory.about.com/b/2012/09/23/imeldas-shoes-falling-to-ruin.htm
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STATEMENT
21 September 2013
Time to lift the long shadow of Dictator Marcos from the Filipino People
Over the night of 21-22 September 1972, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos decreed Martial Law, ensuring that his Presidential term did not come to an end, allowing him to arrest his political competitors, and seize their assets.
Marcos had the blessing of US President Richard Nixon, under the pretext that Marcos was a strong ally against communism in the Cold War and in the last phase of the American War in Vietnam. US military bases at Clark and Subic enabled massive air and naval bombardment of Vietnam for years, as well as being notorious sites of sexual exploitation of women and children.
Indeed, Marcos used the then small but growing armed revolutionary movement led by the re-established Communist Party of the Philippines as a pretext for Martial Law, even though it was not an immediate threat to the Philippines state. That despicable figleaf of anti-communism is long gone as a cover for the present-day gross abuse of human rights.
Martial Law was a nightmare for the Filipino people of all classes, with arbitrary political killings, disappearances, torture, and political prisoner camps all over the country. The war against the Moro people raged in Mindanao. Trade unions and student campaigns were repressed
Under the earliest Structural Adjustment Program of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Marcos created the world’s first Export Processing Zones with its tax holiday for foreign corporations, and “no-union, no-strike” rules. Marcos began state-sponsored export of labour. De-forestation was rampant, with consequences now evident in repeated flood and landslide disasters.
Dictator Marcos created the category of ‘crony capitalism’, and his cronies remain today as powerful economic and political players in the Philippines.
When Marcos had Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. assassinated on 21 August 1983 at the Manila International Airport, the simmering mass movement against the dictatorship erupted. By the end of 1985, he was forced to call a ‘snap election’ for 7 February 1986, which was won by a united opposition led by Mrs. Corazon “Cory” Aquino, mother of the current President. Marcos intended to fraudulently claim victory but was thwarted by an attempted coup which was itself saved by the famous “people power” uprising. The dictator fled to the protection of the US in Hawaii.
It was the Filipino people who removed the dictator in February 1986, with the sympathy of the world’s people, but without any help from the states who loudly proclaim their democratic credentials, in Europe, North America or the Pacific.
The euphoria of that democratic triumph was still echoing around the world, but in the Philippines it did not last long: KMU union leader and political figure Rolando Olalia and his driver Leonor Alay-ay were assassinated on 13 November 1986, protesting peasants were massacred at Mendiola on 21 January 1987, and BAYAN leader Lean Alejandro was assassinated on 19 September 1987. Reactionary groupings in the armed forces launched six coup plots against President Aquino, the most violent being in August 1987.
This powerful reassertion of military power in Philippines society, financed by US military aid, made the Cory Aquino presidency even worse than the Marcos era for cases of human rights abuse, despite its initial steps in releasing all political prisoners, declaring a revolutionary government until a new democratic Constitution was adopted by the people in February 1987, holding elections, and then making the profound decision by the Senate to reject any extension of the US Military Bases Agreement in 1991.
Today, 41 years later, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines calls the international community to attention for the shocking abuse of basic democratic and human rights that continue in the Philippines today. Despite a veneer of democratic institutions and elections, life for most Filipinos is one of grinding poverty, with all protests met with brutal force by the state – arbitrary execution, torture, arbitrary detention, judicial abuse, repression of the people´s organized actions.
Marcos casts a long shadow, but the international community can finally dispel it, in the bright light of scrutiny by civil initiatives, UN institutions and credible courts.
The Philippines is NOT a model of democracy. Following the steps of his predecessors, President Benigno Simeon Aquino III is implementing an undeclared Martial Law. The extrajudicial killing of 142 human rights advocates, political activists and development workers (and frustrated killing of 164 more), the 449 political prisoners being held in detention centres, the 16 cases of enforced disappearance, 76 cases of torture, 540 cases of illegal arrests and more than 30,000 victims of forced evacuation all attest to this reality. The impunity enjoyed today by the current Aquino presidency has its roots in US military aid now under the banner of ‘war on terror’, and the discredited ideology of unfettered ‘free trade and investment’ known as neo-liberalism or the ‘Washington Consensus’
This impunity must be ended by a combination of direct people’s action and state action
Which government will be the first to refuse to have a state visit from President Aquino until General Palparan is put on trial for abductions and extra-judicial killings?
When will the the governments of the United States, Australia and other countries stop military aid and training to the Philippines until root-and-branch reform of the Armed Forces of the Philippines is under way?
Which government will call in the Philippines Ambassador to demand an end to repression of trade unions, farmers, student and other people’s organizations in the Philippines?
Which international figure will be the first to use their public standing to denounce the impunity of the Aquino presidency?
The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines welcomes all organizations who share our passion for human rights and peace to join us in rising to this challenge.
Reference:
Canon Barry Naylor
Chairperson, Global Council
International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP)
Office: +44 (0) 116 261 5371
Mobile: +44 (0) 775 785 3621
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