In her heydays, she exuded confidence that most often than not she was the personification of the good, the true and the beautiful. Those were the days? Not exactly as the timeless Imelda Marcos came to town Friday to greet Boholanos that she is still the stunning beauty that wowed the Boholanos during the reign of her husband the late president Ferdinand Marcos three decades ago. At 81, she is still very much in her element that the same personification is no understatement of her true persona, the ravages of time notwithstanding. She recalled with fond memories that no less than a Boholano bishop who accorded her the accolade as someone special to God. . Being special according to the late Bishop Manuel Mascarinas of the diocese of Tagbilaran how he wished that she would remain nice, sincere and pretty—all the time. According to the former first lady, true to the special treatment she must have enjoyed from high above, she indeed was all sugar and spice and everything nice.

Reviled for her extravagance while in power, Imelda said it was the late bishop who told her: “The Lord has made you special, so you have to be good, true and beautiful.” She took as gospel truth the Boholano churchman's words, explaining now why she is “still good, true and beautiful” contrary to her and husband's notorious personification at the height of their power, influence under the aegis of martial rule. Marcos described Mascariñas, who was appointed in 1951 as the second bishop of the Diocese of Tagbilaran, as her “spiritual mentor” in the prime of her youth. She married in 1954 the man who would later command the nation. The “Steel Butterfly” recounted the religious leader's impression of her during the brief instant welcome program on the Acacia Ground inside the provincial capitol compound here Friday afternoon. Capitol employees waited in long queue from the main capitol ground entrance inward as soon as they heard of Marcos' short site visit to the seat of Bohol government.

Marcos enplaned to Bohol, her only revisit here in decades, on official invitation to crown the Miss Tubigon 2011 which highlighted the town's annual fiesta. Inarguably elegant despite reaching the 80's, the Leyte-born Imelda Remedios Visitacion Romualdez won a nation-wide beauty search before marrying Marcos who was then an Ilocos Norte congressman and a rising national political star. She was both crowned the “Rose of Tacloban” and “Muse of Manila.” They got married in a civil rite after an 11-day whirlwind romance. One published account claimed, however, that the young and brilliant Ferdinand Marcos married the witty and fairy Imelda Romualdez “to prove he was not gay.” Marcos now an incumbent congressman of Ilocus Norte, she paid a courtesy call on Gov. Edgar Chatto at the Governor's Mansion after disembarking at the Tagbilaran City airport.

Chatto served as the Bohol president of the now-defunct Kabataang Barangay (KB), a youth governance instituted in the Marcos time. In a national KB leadership training for provincial federation heads, only two from across the country were rated “summa cum laude”---Bohol's Chatto and Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro of Tarlac, home province of Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. Both cousins, Gibo was defeated by Noynoy in last year's presidential election. The governor briefed the former first lady of the overarching development agenda of the province, to include the enhancement of eco-tourism and culture and the arts which are her passions. Speaking to employees at capitol, Marcos vowed to assist Bohol in whatever she could as member of Congress: “I promise you. Whatever I can do for Bohol I do it.”

BOHOL IS A JOY

Marcos said it is always a “joy” to come to Bohol, which is one of her “favorite” provinces and which people she thanked for supporting the candidacy of her son, Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos , Jr. Bohol's history has inspired her, according to Marcos who specifically cited the importance of the Blood Compact regarded as the first international treaty of friendship between the brown and white races. At their peak of power, Marcos was an irresistible envoy so that her president husband tasked her as a traveling diplomat to nations around the world. One of her much-publicized diplomacies was her historic meeting with Libya's Moammar Khadafy on the Muslim Mindanao concern. She was also the roving ambassador to China, which Jiangxi provincial officials and Bohol leaders headed by Chatto just marked right here on Sunday, or five days before Marcos' visit, the 5 th Bohol-Jinagxi Day. Marcos expressed “how the Boholanos have affected me” as she also recalled having ordered “to grid the Leyte electricity to Bohol.”

It occurred on the inauguration of the Leyte geothermal plant which fell exactly on her birthday, July 2. Marcos was escorted from the Governor's Mansion to capitol by executive assistance Isabelito Tongco and the wife of former Gov. Rolando Butalid, who had served in Marcos' time. Tongco was the long-time mayor of Antequera during the Marcos presidency and was one of the so-called “Magnificent 7,” the seven Bohol mayors who were not booted out in the OIC days of then Pres. Corazon Aquino after the fall of the dictatorship. Before proceeding to capitol from the Governor's Mansion, Marcos paid homage at the St. Joseph Cathedral. She wore pants and kimona-sleeved long blouse in pale black and sad blue. Marcos wore jewelries, including a dangling necklace, but no spectator could tell if they were amazing pieces of Bvlgari, Buccelati, and Van Cleef & Arpels and others associated with her penchant for beauty and luxury while millions of Filipinos starved. She was quoted: “People say I'm extravagant because I want to be surrounded by beauty. But tell me, who wants to be surrounded by garbage?”

DEAR TUBIGON

Marcos' honored presence in the fiesta celebration in Tubigon had both historical and sentimental bearings. Tubigon has an enduring spot in the hearts of the Marcoses because it was in the coastal Bohol town where her husband, then a young guerilla fighter, sought refuge during the Japanese occupation. It is said that in gratitude to the Tubignons, the male Marcos, already president, gave their town electricity and laid there the line to the energization of the province. Rural electrification has been widely regarded as one of Marcos' lasting legacies to the nation. The people of Tubigon could not also forget the Marcos link to the existence of what is now the Mater Dei College (MDC), the municipality's premier learning institution. Based on an account, the MDC founders' first biggest problem was the difficulty to secure a government permit to operate the school about 30 years ago. The secretary of education and director of private schools at the time junked the application for permit due to a moratorium banning the opening of a college.

Later, a plain boatman in Tubigon only identified in the account as “Mr Gulayan” was suggested to be an effective bridge to facilitate the fast approval of the school permit by himself seeing the Pres. Marcos. Marcos turned out to be the soldier whom the boatman had helped escape from the Japanese in the long past. “The very brief scribbling of Marcos to release the permit handcarried by Gulayan cut short all the red tape for approval,” according to the historical account of the school, which finally had its first flag raising ceremony on June 18, 1984. While the late dictator remains in a frozen corpse on national-scale resistance to his hero's burial, his widow pledged to come again to Bohol whenever chances present. Unknown to many, a Marcos ruled Bohol's capital and only city of Tagbilaran more than 200 years before any of the Marcoses had even ever stepped on the Boholano soil or established attachment, personal or official, with the province. In 1742, Tagbilaran was freed from Baclayon and established into a separate, new town. On July 4 of the same year, its officials were elected led by a mayor or gobernadorcillo named Don Calixto Marcos. (Ven rebo Arigo)