unknowable diaries

Why Was Imelda Marcos So Obsessed with Art and Culture?

Posted on 10/06/26

For those passing by Pasay City, the Cultural Center of the Philippines can be hard to ignore. The striking, concrete appearance of the museum often contrasts with all other buildings around it. Even despite its grey, brutalist design, it stands tall and proud over the city, practically demanding the attention of all. The Cultural Center of the Philippines was a project of the infamous Former First Lady Imelda Marcos, and its existence has received much controversy.

The CCP, though, is not the only art institution that Imelda Marcos has personally funded and overseen. Imelda had also established the Manila Film Center, the National Arts Center, and commissioned many artists to paint murals and stage large-scale operas. This behavior of hers has been described by historian Gerard Lico as an ‘edifice complex,’ wherein leaders or governments build extravagant and grand public structures to promote a false image of power and prosperity (2003). Lico especially emphasized how the architectural style of the Marcos era was political in nature, and served to promote an ideology of great beauty and wealth under martial law.

Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos had everything to gain through the patronage of Filipino art and culture. The performance of beauty and extravagance in the face of Filipino poverty was, in fact, Imelda’s main platform as the First Lady, which she emphasized repeatedly throughout the years (Escoda, 2019). In the aspect of architecture, the Marcoses sought to give themselves an “aura of omnipresence,” as these structures lasted decades after the regime had fallen. They especially aimed to establish the Philippines as a modern and progressive land not just to the Filipino people, but to the global community. Through the establishment of architecture inspired by both modernist architecture, designer hospitals, and commissioned murals on public spaces in Manila, the Marcoses promoted myths of a modernized Philippines under the regime.

The incorporation of vernacular and Filipino cultural motifs in Marcos regime architecture was also meant to establish a myth of a collective national identity, echoing the ‘Isang Bansa, Isang Diwa' motto that was adopted through Ferdinand Marcos’ presidential decree (Republic of The Philippines, 1978). Structures, in the era of Marcos, served not only as locations and establishments but also as forms of cultural representation. However, this “national style” that was being propped up failed to represent the diversity and plurality of Filipino culture.

The Marcoses’ control on art and culture also extended to the art world, as the artistic institutions they established then affected and continue to influence how artists succeed within the field. As the award of National Artist, conferred by the president and managed by the CCP, – though today, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts now joins the CCP in administering the awards – elevated Filipino artists in the art space and gave their works more value and prestige (Canete, 2016). This, in turn, made art and culture and the masses’ conceptualization of art conform to the values of the regime in order to promote its ideologies.

Walter Benjamin, in his 1935 essay, The Work Of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, emphasizes how art has transformed from religious and ritual artifacts to political tools. Benjamin had written that essay during the rise of Adolf Hitler as ‘Fuhrer’ of fascist Germany, but what he describes is much similar to conditions in Marcos’ Philippines. Walter Benjamin touches on the aestheticization of politics and war. “Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves,” Benjamin wrote. As Hitler, through art, architecture, and propaganda, promoted an image of a supreme German race in order to justify the violence of World War 2, so did the Marcoses. The Filipino people were not given their right, but instead, given self-expression through aesthetics. They were represented internationally through Imelda Marcos and her various cultural projects, but the representation was false.

While Imelda wanted to present a happy and thriving Philippines, that image was no further from the truth. The Martial Law era was marked by a great amount of violence. There were over 60,000 reported political prisoners under Marcos’ rule, and the investigations of human rights organizations found that torture was commonplace among these prisoners (Robles, 2016). Poverty was rampant, with 6 out of 10 Filipinos being left impoverished as the Marcos regime ended, compared to the statistic of 4 out of 10 prior to Marcos’ inauguration. Daily wages of both skilled and unskilled workers had fallen sharply while the prices of goods tripled. The Marcoses’ extravagant spending caused a rise in national debt (Ateneo Martial Law Museum, n.d.). But to this day, the Marcoses’ contributions to art and culture and the false image they had projected through their patronage is still being used to whitewash and revise history (Dalisay, 2022).

In some form, the Filipinos of the modern day are just ‘obsessed’ with false prestige and recognition through international cultural representation as the Marcoses were. It’s a phenomenon well observed on the internet, and Western brands and vloggers have picked up on the trend and used it to their advantage to gain more views and sales from proud Filipinos. It is, of course, never bad to support the work of fellow Filipino artists and figures, but very rarely do people question who or what the representation of culture truly benefits, and what material conditions have shaped their perceptions of art and culture. “The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one,” wrote Walter Benjamin. In the same essay, he calls for the politicization of art to combat fascism’s aestheticization of politics. And as fascism and fascist-apologia only grows and thrives to this day, the relevance of this call to action only becomes clearer.

REFERENCES

Ateneo Martial Law Museum. (n.d.). Martial Law in Data. Martial Law Museum. https://learn.martiallawmuseum.ph/magaral/martial-law-in-data/

Benjamin, W. (1935). The Work of Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. New York: Schocken Books. https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf

Cañete, R. (2016, December 8). Philippine Arts & Culture in the Socio-Historical Context of Nation, Region & Globalization [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys6xUugCmF8

Dalisay, J. (2022, March 6). Who owes what to whom. Philstar.com. https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2022/03/07/2165392/who-owes-what-whom

Escoda, C. (2024, September 19). “The Kingmaker” probes the renaissance of Imelda Marcos. KQED. https://www.kqed.org/arts/13871075/the-kingmaker-probes-the-renaissance-of-imelda-marcos

Lico, G. (2003). Edifice complex: Power, Myth, and Marcos State Architecture. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/edificecomplexpo0000lico/

Republic of The Philippines (1978). Presidential Decree No. 1413: Declaring the theme “Isang Bansa, Isang Diwa” as the national motto of the Republic of the Philippines, and incorporating it in the national seal. The LawPhil Project. https://www.lawphil.net/statutes/presdecs/pd1978/pd_1413_1978.html

Robles, R. E. (2016). Marcos Martial Law: Never again. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/marcosmartiallaw0000robl/