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Early life

Birth and family background

Imelda Remedios Visitacion Romualdez was born in the city of San Miguel, Manila, on July 2, 1929. Her parents were Vicente Orestes Romualdez, a lawyer, and his second wife, Remedios Romualdez. Vicente’s first wife, Juanita, died allegedly of leukemia on August 3, 1926. Imelda is the sixth of Vicente’s eleven children, and the first of Remedios.

Born into the Romualdez clan, a prestigious political dynasty hailing from the province of Leyte, Imelda grew up to a wealthy family of catolico cerrados (strict, no-nonsense Roman Catholics). She was immediately baptized after the day of her birth by Monsignor Juan Somera in the parish church of San Miguel, Manila. Her grandmother, Donya Trinidad Lopez de Romualdez, was the matriarch of the Romualdez clan. She and her husband, Daniel Romualdez Arcilla, were considered the first ever Romualdezes to have lived in Tolosa, Leyte, originally for the purpose of Daniel’s health, but soon became the mark for the flourish of the Romualdez clan in said municipality.

Some other notable members of Imelda’s family are her uncle Norberto Romualdez, who was Philippine Supreme Court Justice Associate and the first of the Romualdezes to achieve national prominence, and her younger brother Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez, who served as the Governor of Leyte and also the Philippine Ambassador during the Marcos administration.

Early Childhood

At the time of her birth, the Romualdezes had the comforts of material prosperity and had the reputation of wealthy Manilans. However, around 1931-1932, the financial conditions of Imelda’s family began to decline.

Imelda’s parents were separated for a time and Imelda’s mother left their home due to domestic differences between Imelda’s mother, Remedios, and her father’s first children. During this separation, Remedios worked for the nuns at the Asilo de San Vicente de Paul. Vicente and Remedios reconciled thereafter.

To avoid further conflict, Remedios and her children moved to their house's garage. At 1937 after Conchita’s birth, Remedios’ health began to fail. On April 7, 1938, she passed away due to double pneumonia. In her ten years of marriage, Imelda had five siblings - Benjamin, Alita, Alfredo, Armando and Conchita.

On the same year, 1938, Imelda’s father gave up Manila due to his declining fortunes in his law practice and returned to Tacloban where he could support his family with a simpler lifestyle. Imelda has been claimed to have met General Douglas MacArthur when he landed in Palo, Leyte during the Philippines Campaign in 1944. She speaks Tagalog and English, the languages of Manila, as well as Waray, the language of Leyte.

Education

Elementary

Imelda studied grade one in Holy Ghost College where her stepsisters studied. In the school year 1936-1937, registration records in Holy Ghost College showed that Imelda didn't enroll again. This disappearance was easily accounted for by two sets of pictures of Imelda which were taken after she received First Communion at the Holy Infant Academy in Tacloban, Leyte.

She continued her early studies in Holy Infant Academy, a convent school run by Benedictine Sisters. The old wooden structure of the school still stands today four blocks away from the Romualdez house. At school too, Imelda had to face the fact for their humiliating poverty. She was frequently among the students who had to apologize for late payments.

High School

In 1942, the Romualdezes returned to Tacloban,and around that time, Imelda's father refused to let her go back to school. When the Americans came, she lined up with a hundred other young girls in wooden clogs at the Leyte High School, eager to resume her studies. The year was 1944. She finished first year at the provincial high school where she was also chosen Miss I-A; then in her second year. she moved to Holy Infant and stayed there until she graduated.

Imelda continued her higher studies in Holy Infant Academy. Imelda studied with the Sisters from 1938 to 1948, the year she graduated from high school. As a student, her scholastic record shows that she had a general average of 80% throughout her primary and high school. High school ended in the summer of 1948 when her class posed for the last time in the blue-and-white uniform of Holy Infant.

College

Imelda learned her first political lesson when she ran for president of the student council at St. Paul's College, now the flourishing Divine Word University. That was 1951, only three years before her marriage to Marcos. At that time, she was about to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Education. She was put up as candidate for the Department of Education, which had an enrollment of 800 students. Even during the nomination, her victory was already a foregone conclusion, but the school authorities insisted that another candidate be put up to make the elections a democratic procedure. That was how the College of Law, with 200 students, put up Francisco Pedrosa.

While an undergraduate, she did some practice teaching at the Chinese high school in town shortly before graduating in 1952. She had won a scholarship to study music at the Philippine Women's University under Maestra Adoracion Reyes, a close friend of Imelda's cousin, Loreto Romualdez Ramos. She had a job at a music store but left this for a better one at the Central Bank. Straight from the Central Bank, she hurried to the University everyday. After a few lessons, Adoracion was convinced Imelda had talent and persuaded her to enroll at the College of Music and Fine Arts at PWU, under a special arrangement that would put her on register while Adoracion would continue to give her free lessons.

Imelda in Manila

Life in Manila with Danieling Romualdez

She came back to Manila in 1952 during the regime of President Quirino and stayed in the house of her relative, called Danieling Romualdez who was a formidable politician and the Speaker Protempore of the Lower House of Congress. Danieling Romualdez did not have children on his own but had adopted three orphans. According to the book ‘The Untold Story of Imelda Marcos’ by Carmen Navarro-Pedrosa, her status in the house of Danieling Romualdez was “higher than servants and lower than family members as a poor relative”. During her father’s visit to Manila, she worked as a salesgirl in a store called P. E. Domingo where Vicente Romualdez was infuriated at Eduardo Romualdez (the Chairman of Rehabilitation Finance Corporation) and Danieling Romualdez because Vicente thought that his two nephews were “selling his daughter”.

A College Student, A Banker

To calm the indignation of Vicente Romualdez, Eduardo and Danieling exercised their political and economic influence to find work for Imelda in the Central Bank where she worked in the Intelligence Division under Braulio Hipuna, the Chief Clerk of the Intelligence Division. She later had vocal lessons in Philippine Women’s University and met Adoracion Reyes who was introduced to her by her cousin, Loreto, and played an important role for Imelda to take vocal sessions in the university by providing a chance to get scholarship and was a teacher in the College of Music and Fine Arts of Philippine Women’s University. According to Susie Abadilla who took the same vocal sessions together with Imelda, she was not so friendly, and the reason presumably stemmed from the strict and busy routines back then, and her reluctance to talk about her family and her past. Due to the suggestion of having a performance, which became the first and last performance in a music hall from her cousin, Loreto, in Holy Ghost College, she performed three songs, “Calm is the Night”, “Sin Tu Amor”, and “False Prophet”.

A Way to Fame

Her aspiration for fame commenced after she met Angel Anden and was asked to be a cover girl of the Valentine issue of the magazine (printed on Feb 15, 1953) called This Week (now, Chronical Magazine), where Anden was the editor. Imelda was not able to get an approval and acquire a sponsorship to participate in the Miss Manila contest from her cousins (Danieling, Eduardo, and Loreto), but, with the help of Adoracion, gained a sponsorship from Philippine Women’s University after a meeting with the president of the university, Mrs. Francisca Benitez. The controversial Miss Manila beauty pageant dawned on Mar 1, 1953, when Imelda and the Reyes spouses were in great despair after hearing news that Norma Jimenez became the candidate of Miss Philippines and the winner of Miss Manila, and sought to meet the mayor of Manila, Aresenio Lacson who revoked the decision and made Imelda Romualdez to be the winner of Miss Manila. The mayor announced that there were violations of rules by the International Fair Board, and it is the mayor’s authority to nominate the candidate of the City of Manila for the beauty contest. It turned out that Imelda won 655 points whereas Norma Jimenez acquired 453 points. Both Imelda and Norma participated in Miss Philippines; however, the winner of Miss Philippines was Cristina Galang (Caedo, now) from Tarlac, and became one of the members of Imelda’s band of women campaigners, Blue Ladies.

The Love Story of Ferdinand and Imelda and Marriage

Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos officially met on April 6, 1954 at the Philippine Congress, during a budget hearing of then President Ramon Magsaysay. Ferdinand was part of the opposition team who led the argument against the budget, while Imelda was there accompanied by her cousin, Paz “Pacing” Romualdez to visit her cousin Danieling, who was the Speaker of the House. It was during recess when Imelda catches Ferdinand’s eye, and the latter demanded his journalist friend, Jose Guevara of The Manila Times, to introduce him to the girl. At that time, Ferdinand already knew of Imelda and her reputation not only as a member of the prominent Romualdez clan, but also as a part of the Miss Manila Controversy of 1953. Imelda, on the other hand, knew very little of the 36-year-old Congressman, despite his prestige.  After comparing heights and confirming that he was at least an inch taller than the 25-year-old young woman, Ferdinand immediately decided to pursue her in marriage. This began what was later known as the “Eleven-Day Whirlwind”, where Ferdinand, with the help of Guevarra, courted Imelda for eleven days.

Throughout the Holy Week of that year, Ferdinand visited Imelda’s house once, and when Imelda claimed that she plans to spend the holidays in Baguio, Ferdinand and Guevarra did not hesitate and offered her a ride up to Danieling’s family mansion where she planned to stay, while the two booked a room in nearby Pines. For the remaining days of that Holy Week, Ferdinand showered Imelda with flowers and gifts and would visit her daily, prodding her to sign the marriage license that would close off the agreement. And on April 16, 1954, Good Friday, after having been asked by Guevarra, allegedly jokingly, if she wanted to be “the First Lady of the Land someday” Imelda finally agreed to sign it. Immediately after that, on April 17, 1954, they were secretly married by a reluctant Francisco Chanco, a judge befriended by Ferdinand, who lived in the area. However, only after receiving the blessing of Vicente Orestes, Imelda’s father, which Ferdinand asked for through telegram on Easter Sunday, did Imelda and Ferdinand officially have a Catholic wedding, on May 1, 1954, at the San Miguel Pro-Cathedral in Manila.

Ferdinand Marcos's campagin and Imelda's contributions

Imelda knew that her husband Ferdinand Marcos dreamed to become the president of the Philippines ever since he was a congressman. One reason why Marcos married Imelda, aside from her physical charms, was because she was a Romualdez—an aristocrat. Imelda’s beauty, as well as her background, was appreciated to a great extent by Marcos and Marcos believed she would not only add light to his daily life but also to his political career.

Imelda, coming from a family who practiced a simple lifestyle, had initial difficulties adjusting to her husband’s extravagant lifestyle. She once complained that she was only earning a hundred and twenty pesos a month despite her hard labor. To this, Marcos laughed and said that it was her fault that she was working hard only for such an amount. This was a turning point for Imelda to no longer feel guilty about spending money. From then on, she pushed herself to extreme luxury.

Imelda was expected to be sophisticated, elegant, and well versed by her husband. Marcos knew that having a supportive wife, a trophy that he can be proud of, would gain him more supporters as well as votes. Imelda began dressing herself with expensive clothes and made every efforts to become the person whom her husband wanted her to be.

In her efforts to being the apt wife, she was often given an eye for trying too hard, but at the same time, she also became a subject of envy to the fellow politicians’ wives. Imelda learned how to get people’s attention and to spotlight it both to her and her husband. She reached out to every single person who was seen as essential in Marcos' campaign. Her efforts were not original, but extraordinary. No other politicians’ wives shook hands with all the delegates, visited their homes, genuinely understood the concerns they had, aside from Imelda. She bombarded them with gifts when necessary.

Not only was Imelda good with people but was also a skilled mediator who bridged up broken relations that occurred with Marcos. During Marcos’ presidency in the Nacionalista Party, Fernando Lopez, back then Marcos’ vice-presidential running mate, was unwilling to continue his political career. As Marcos asked help from Imelda to help him mend ties with Lopez, Imelda did not hesitate to burst up into tears so to get Lopez convinced that he should run as the Nacionalista vice-presidential candidate.

By the time Marcos was campaigning to become President, Imelda’s influence in Marcos’ political career was crucial. Her husband may have been a good tactician but it was Imelda's determination and popularity that ensured votes to him. Marcos heavily relied on Imelda, and as time passed, Imelda was no longer a clone of Marcos. Instead, she had become his political partner.