SOS! Save Our Shoes!

I am a day early this week. Does that make up for being late last week?

Now I am all for history and preservation of items of historical significance and/or interest. But there really does come a point of lunacy.

Remember Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos? Phillipines dictator and his wife who lived in luxurious splendour while ever so many of their nation struggled to even eat? Imelda's collection of at least 1,225 pairs of shoes, left behind when she and Ferdy had to do a sprint ahead of a revolt?

Shock. Horror. It has just been announced that Imelda's shoe collection, part of a stock of "precious mementoes from the Marcoses" was not properly stored by the museum that was given the task of looking after them. And now it has been discovered that they are rotting, infested with termites.

Imelda Marcos's shoe collection pictured in 1987, the year after she and her husband fled the Philippines. Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features

According to the museum curator Orlando Abinion, "Imelda may have worn some of these clothes in major official events and as such they have an important place in our history."

Oh give me a break. The bloody shoes she wore to an event are somehow an important part of history? Was justice ever truly served on the Marcoses? Nope. The literally billions believed to have been squirrelled away by them ever properly recovered? Nope.


I have some friends in the Philippines. And life is still pretty damned hard there for the average Filipino. Work is damned hard to find. Welfare services that so many of the rest of us take for granted are virtually non-existent. Yet this museum has the funding and resources to undertake conservation work to rescue and repair Imelda's bloody shoe collection.

Could it be that as Imelda has wormed her way back into Phillipines society and even into Parliament (the same ruling body that she helped Ferdinand quash), suddenly it is deemed wise to look after this nonsensical part of their past? Sure these symbols of extravagance and waste would be better remembered as a lesson, not as historic symbols to be valued in this way, seemingly more important than ensuring the average Filipino can actually eat.

 How completely and utterly ridiculous!

Now if you have an opinion on what I'm blathering about or even just feel like saying hi, then don't be afraid to leave a comment or post something to me via Twitter or Facebook. I don't bite - at least not always. Or even follow the blog by email.