Imelda Marcos

Imelda Marcos (née Romuáldez, born 2 July 1929) is a Filipino socialite, politician, and congresswoman who was First Lady of the Philippines for 21 years, during which she and her husband had amassed about US$5-10 billion of ill-gotten wealth,    the bulk of which still remains unrecovered.

She married Ferdinand Marcos in 1954 and became First Lady in 1965 when he became President of the Philippines. She and her family gained notoriety for living a lavish lifestyle during a period of economic crisis and civil unrest in the country. She is known for spending much of her time abroad on state visits, extravagant parties, shopping sprees, her jewelry and shoe collections, and for initiating multiple grand architectural projects using public funds, behavior which has come to be described in common parlance as Imeldific.

The People Power Revolution in February 1986 unseated the Marcoses and forced the family into exile. In 1991, President Corazon Aquino allowed the Marcos family to return to the Philippines after the 1989 death of Ferdinand Marcos. Imelda Marcos was elected four times to the House of Representatives – as a congresswoman for Leyte in 1995 and for Ilocos Norte in 2010, 2013, and 2016, and remains one of the richest politicians in the Philippines.

She, along with her husband Ferdinand, are famous for holding the Guinness World Record for the Greatest Robbery of a Government. In November 2018, she was convicted of corruption charges during her term as governor of Manila between 1978 and 1984 and was sentenced to decades in prison.