AFTER receiving no violent reaction from her on my two consecutive columns titled after her, Imee Marcos, the senator and super ate, finally accommodated my visit to her.
When I was on my way I made the mistake of telling the driver to proceed to the former Doña Josefa house where I went before with a group of stakeholders in agriculture to meet her. The guards directed me instead to the old Marcos house on the other side of the road. Director Darryl Yap and comedian Juliana were just coming out of a meeting when I arrived.
Like the Bosya I have known for the last 40 years, she would not waste time and took that opportunity to speak her mind and exchange views with a few of us who were there. She was wearing a black shirt with a huge KB logo in white. “Bakit black?” I asked. “Maganda naman sya. I like black.”
The conversation with Bosya became more animated in the presence of South Cotabato Governor Reynaldo Tamayo Jr., currently the president of the League of Provinces of the Philippines, Vice Chairman of the National Anti Poverty Commission, and President of the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas.
In her excitement in telling stories about what the Kabataang Barangay was doing during her father’s time, she narrated with both seriousness and some humor her conversations with her father about the US bases at a time when their presence and nature were becoming untenable even for the government while anti-government forces relentlessly denounced them.
I remember Bosya conferring with the KB national executive committee to ask its opinion. Finally, Bosya requested then Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora to deliver her aide memoire to her father President informing him of the stand of the KB for the removal of the US bases. That sent the US Embassy into a frenzy of calculated propaganda branding the KB as a Marcos brainwashing tool, something I took as an offense against me also because I was in charge of training in-school youth for KB at that time.
I remember the time I was interviewed live by a lady host on TV and asked, “Aren’t you being used by Marcos?” Without much thinking I blurted, “Yes, pero ginagamit din namin sya!” The host was taken aback and I realized I could have made a bad slip of the tongue. It turned out that many in the KB ranks would have made the same reply, too. I never heard Bosya comment on that if ever she watched it. Neither I got the stare and rolling of the eyes from her. Bosya in her story-telling before Governor Tamayo practically described the KB group as some sort of a rebel-minded group. A small marginal note from her then facilitated a lot of things in our work in KB.
We call Bosya the Chairman of KB for her being the Chairman of the Kabataang Barangay Foundation that augmented the budget of the KB National Secretariat that she too supervised and for leading the KB movement, an all-encompassing network of elected KB officers and their local members, the In-school KB school chapters and all those involved in the implementation of KB national programs including leadership training. Bosya is undisputedly the known leader of the Kabataang Barangay for whatever remains of it until now.
Just recently, Bosya obliged a group of former CPP cadres and attended their event. That was not surprising to me. During martial law, she asked her father for the release of detained movie industry personalities among others. She headed then the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines which produced some memorable films like Oro, Plata, Mata, and Himala. She welcomed Ka Luis Taruc to KB training. She allowed newly released political prisoners and former CPP stalwarts like Nilo Tayag, Nonnie Villanueva, and Nards Nicdao to speak before KB assemblies.
After her father opened diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, Bosya herself headed a separate group of KB officers that went to PRC for a cultural exchange mission. The last time I went to China in 2019 the Chinese consular officer who interviewed me for my visa was familiar with that visit of Bosya. I was asked to explain my trip to China in 1985, a time before the massive pro-democracy demonstrations that ended violently at Tiananmen Square. I said it had the blessing of the KB Chairman then and after showing the consular officer an old picture of me with Bosya, a smile and a quick stamp on my passport followed.
Bosya opened a restaurant at the Podium mall in Mandaluyong and she named it Lolo Mao. Another one with the same name was opened in Greenhills. They featured Asian food specialties including Singaporean rose-laced milk tea. I never asked her why Lolo Mao. That would be naïve I think. I just imagined the published photos of her parents and presidential son BBM enjoying moments with Mao Tse Tung himself.
Bosya however joined the official visit of the family in Cuba where Fidel Castro himself drove the open jeep they rode. After this visit and the opening up of diplomatic relations with then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the KB was invited to send delegations to youth festivals in Moscow. Not to be outdone, the US Embassy sent invitations to KB, too, for a tour of military facilities in mainland US. Pinpointed was a KB trainer-lecturer known for his anti-US imperialism stance. We used to tease this colleague, “Anti Anti ka, antay visa ka pala!” It was a joke and he remained critical of US military presence in the country until his death.
Even after EDSA 1, Bosya kept track of the KB network, inviting some to personal and family events and engaging others in official and political matters. Seeing Bosya has not been a regular thing for me since our days with the KBNS in Fort Bonifacio that ended in 1986.
I just savor the past and fun memories that included the times she treated us KB program managers to lunch breaks at such restaurants as the little and crowded Mr. Poon Chinese restaurant in Malate and the serene L’Eau Vive French restaurant in Paco run by missionary sisters. Among the KB program managers then were former Secretary General of the House of Representatives and now Undersecretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform, Atty. Marilyn Barua-Yap and now cultural adviser of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Dr. Alex Cortez from the famed Dulaang UP. It was on those occasions that we got candid remarks from her that sometimes left us dumbfounded. And from every foreign trip, she always had something for us, her staff, like a bottle of tequila from Cancun, Mexico, or a jacket from Hongkong. And after our days in KBNS, a personal text message of invitation to her son’s wedding in Ilocos Norte or to the celebration of her father’s birthday was always a happy surprise.
Now in my senior years, I treat every opportunity to see her as just something to add to my treasured memories of Imee Marcos off-camera.
