TACLOBAN, the Philippines — Look around this once-gracious city by a horseshoe-shape bay and it is still possible to imagine it before the mass deaths and devastation of last Friday’s typhoon, when it was a jewel of the Pacific thanks in good part to a local girl who became a global celebrity: Imelda R. Marcos, the flamboyant former first lady of the Philippines.
Spaced along the main coastal road are St. Nino’s Shrine, an elegant mansion that once held Mrs. Marcos’s infamous shoe collection; a stately white community hall fit for a much larger city; and the pink St. Nino’s Church. All were built or restored at lavish expense when Ferdinand E. Marcos ruled the country from 1966 to 1986.
Mrs. Marcos’s family, the Romualdez clan, has dominated local politics for generations. She held a congressional seat for the province in the 1990s, and one of her nephews is the mayor of Tacloban and another is a congressman in the region.
So as Tacloban residents fume over the widespread initial failure of relief efforts to provide food, water, medical treatment or even security, some of the blame is falling on a family that many here have long revered.
The debate over who is responsible was in full swing on Thursday at a bus shelter outside St. Nino’s Shrine, which lost the collection of shoes that symbolized Mrs. Marcos’s opulent lifestyle to a museum in Manila, but still displays her private collection of ancient vases.
As a tropical downpour began to turn roads clogged with debris into ankle-deep lakes, Perlin V. Bechachino, a local resident who is married to a fisherman, explained why she still held Mrs. Marcos, 84, and the Romualdez family in high esteem. (Mrs. Marcos’s maiden name was Romualdez.)
Mrs. Bechachino cited the family’s many donations to St. Nino’s Church, where she attends services every Sunday. She praised the local government for warning people five days in advance that a typhoon was coming, prompting her to head with her family to an official evacuation center that did not fill with water — unlike others where people drowned when the sea entered.
And she spoke almost rapturously about how she had been one of 500 people at a relief station this week to receive food directly from Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the former first lady’s son.
“I really love the Marcos family, because they have loved the people of Tacloban City,” she said.
But seven other newly homeless people who were huddled under the bus shelter angrily disagreed and faulted the local government — which is supposed to respond to disasters — and by extension, the Romualdez clan.
“I’m missing my son; he’s 24 years old,” said Teresita Aroza, the 54-year-old wife of a security guard. “I’ve not received anything at all from the local government.”
Standing with her husband, her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend, Mrs. Aroza described how they had been in their home as a wall of water from the storm surge hit last Friday evening and the house crumbled. They rushed to their neighbors’ more solid house, only to find them drowned inside.
Then an even bigger wave swept the family out to sea. The family members at the bus shelter had survived by holding on to floating banana trees and paddling to shore, but Mrs. Aroza’s son disappeared in the torrents.
The family has been opening body bags along a coastal road and checking the purple, misshapen corpses inside to try to find her son. As they search, they have received no food or water as the aid response here continues to falter.
“The Marcos family is distant from the people,” Mrs. Aroza said. “We always respected the Marcos family, but we did not idolize them, and now our view of the Marcos family has fallen because they are not taking care of us.”
Mrs. Aroza’s 21-year-old daughter, Devi Aroza, said, “75 percent of the people now do not like the Marcoses.”
Mrs. Bechachino countered that the storm had been so dreadful that no one could have managed its effects. But with opinion in the bus shelter against her and the rain tapering, she left quickly to chase a passing bicycle cart and ask for help in moving the few possessions that her family had salvaged from the wreckage of their home.
Mayor Alfred S. Romualdez of Tacloban, Mrs. Marcos’s nephew, made the same point as Mrs. Bechachino in interviews on Wednesday and Thursday, contending that Typhoon Haiyan would have devastated any city and slowed recovery. Buildings sturdy enough to be designated as evacuation centers are required to have roofs that could withstand winds of up to 100 miles per hour, he said. Typhoon Haiyan had sustained winds nearly twice that fast, based on satellite estimates, and gusts that were even more powerful.
“How do you prepare for a super typhoon like that, when you don’t have the structures?” he asked.
Mr. Romualdez said that he had not been able to speak to his aunt since the typhoon, partly because he was too busy but also because his cellphone was washed away when the storm destroyed his house. But a niece, who insisted on anonymity because she was not authorized to speak for the family, said other family members were sheltering Mrs. Marcos from the worst of the news as she recovered from an infection.
“She just knows that a strong typhoon hit, but she’s not being told the extent of the damage,” the niece said. “The family is concerned that she will find a way to go there if she finds out what happened. She cannot be stopped — they can’t control her.”
Mrs. Marcos, who is now a member of Congress for a different region, is sometimes viewed with bemusement by her fellow countrymen. In 2006, she started a jewelry line made of trash and recycled goods, one of several pursuits that the Philippine news media have mocked.
Still, her family’s continued influence could pose a political complication here.
The political party of the Romualdez and Marcos families has faded at the national level and is now a minor player. Mr. Romualdez declined to comment on whether differences between him and President Benigno S. Aquino III of the Liberal Party had hurt relief efforts. (Mr. Aquino’s mother, Corazon C. Aquino, became president when Mr. Marcos was driven from power after her followers say he stole the election.)
Mr. Romualdez said he believed relief efforts would have gone better if the national government had sent 2,000 troops at the start instead of 1,000. Ricky Carandang, a presidential spokesman, denied there had been any political difficulties. “The mayor asked the national government to restore order, and that’s what we’ve done,” he said.
At St. Nino’s Shrine, it was clear that the Marcos name retains at least some of its mystique. While nearly every store in the area was stripped clean, this building — sometimes called the Imelda Marcos shrine — was unscathed. Gonzalo Lu said he and other security guards had pushed back crowds who sought shelter after the typhoon. “We would have killed and died before we’d let anyone in,” he said.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/world/asia/not-even-marcos-family-is-spared-residents-ire.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/B/Bradsher,%20Keith?ref=keithbradsher&pagewanted=print