Imelda shoe collection survives RP flood - report

MANILA, Philippines - A museum guard’s quick thinking saved part of former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos’s infamous shoe collection when huge floods devastated the nation’s capital, a report said Thursday.

The 200-pair display was moved upstairs just before flood waters swamped the ground floor of the Marikina Shoe Museum on the eastern outskirts of the capital, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported, citing the city mayor.

“A guard was able to take most of the pairs to the second floor. We will account for them in due time, but our priority right now is still the affected families,” it quoted city mayor Marides Fernando as saying in an interview.

Marikina, the Philippines’ shoe production capital, was among the hardest hit areas when Tropical Storm Ketsana dumped record rains in and around Manila on Sept. 26, killing nearly 300 people.

Marcos’s shoe collection has become one of the most notorious symbols of the life of luxury and excess she enjoyed during the 20-year reign of her dictator husband, Ferdinand Marcos.

About 3,000 pairs of shoes were discovered in her quarters at the Malacanang presidential palace after she and her husband fled to US exile amid a bloodless “people power” revolt that ended Marcos rule in 1986.

The former first lady, who returned to the Philippines shortly after her husband died in Hawaii in 1991, has long maintained that she collected so many shoes partly to promote the Marikina industry.

The Marikina museum showcases the Marcos collection and an assortment of other footwear worn by former Philippine presidents, senators, ambassadors, and Marikina mayors.

City mayor Fernando could not be reached for comment on Thursday. The telephones at the museum, which opened in 2001, were not working.