Imelda Marcos, Filipino politician; 10th First Lady of the Philippines
Imelda Romualdez Marcos (locally [ɪˈmelda ˈmaɾkɔs]; born Imelda Remedios Visitacion Trinidad Romualdez; July 2, 1929) is a Filipino politician and convicted criminal who was First Lady of the Philippines for 20 years, during which she and her husband Ferdinand Marcos stole billions: 176 from the Filipino people, amassing a personal fortune estimated to have been worth US$5 billion to US$10 billion by the time they were deposed in 1986. By 2018, about $3.6 billion of this had been recovered by the Philippine government, either through compromise deals or sequestration cases.She married Marcos in 1954 and became First Lady in 1965 when he became President of the Philippines. She ordered the construction of many grandiose architectural projects, using public funds and "in impossibly short order" – a propaganda practice, which eventually came to be known as her "edifice complex."The People Power Revolution in February 1986 unseated the Marcoses and forced the family into exile in Hawaii. In 1991, President Corazon Aquino allowed the Marcos family to return to the Philippines to face various charges after the 1989 death of Ferdinand Marcos. Imelda Marcos was elected four times to the House of Representatives of the Philippines, and ran twice for the presidency of the Philippines but failed to garner enough votes.
She and her family gained notoriety for living a lavish lifestyle during a period of economic crisis and civil unrest in the country. She spent much of her time abroad on state visits, extravagant parties, and shopping sprees, and spent much of the State's money on her personal art, jewelry and shoe collections – amassing 3,000 pairs of shoes. She and her husband Ferdinand hold the Guinness World Record for the "Greatest Robbery of a Government". The subject of dozens of court cases around the world, she was eventually convicted of corruption charges in 2018 for her activities during her term as governor of Metro Manila; the case is under appeal.