Imelda camp mum on Newsweek’s ‘greediest’ tag

MANILA, Philippines – Former First Lady Imelda Marcos declined to comment on her inclusion in Newsweek’s list of the greediest people of all time, a television report said late Sunday. GMA News’ Weekend Report on Sunday quoted Marcos’ camp as saying that they have yet to see the article before providing a reaction. The list lumped Mrs. Marcos with Marcus Licinius Crassus, Genghis Khan, Pope Sixtus IV, William Vanderbilt, Willam Tweed, Empress Dowager Cixi, Charles Ponzi, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Kozlowski, and Bernard Madoff . “[Imelda Marcos] saw it as her duty to provide ‘some kind of light, a star’ for the impoverished Filipino people over whom her husband presided," the Newsweek article wrote of the wife of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. “She took $5 million shopping sprees to New York and Rome, reportedly owned the world’s largest collection of gems and 3,000 pairs of shoes," it further read. Meanwhile, Malacañang on Monday warned President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s critics against making similar insinuations against the President, who deputy presidential spokesperson Anthony Golez Jr. said deserves “respect." Golez referred to earlier reports quoting Rep. Teofisto Guingona III as saying Mrs. Arroyo should also be on Newsweek’s list. “Maghinay-hinay ang mga nagsasabi ng ganyan [Critics should think twice before making such statements]," he said in an interview on dzXL radio. President Arroyo and her husband have been hounded by various allegations of corruption, but she and First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo had repeatedly denied involvement in the anomalies hurled against them. A 2007 survey by pollster Pulse Asia showed that almost four out of 10 Filipinos considered President Arroyo as the most corrupt president in the history of the Philippines since the Marcos administration. The survey showed that 42 percent of the respondents picked Mrs. Arroyo, while 35 percent picked Ferdinand Marcos, who was ousted in 1986 by EDSA people power uprising. - Sophia Dedace, GMANews.TV