Glory Her

By Marga Ortigas in Asia on April 29th, 2010
Photos by Brendan Ager

By her own admission, she’s been called many names:  “evil”, “greedy”,  “corrupt”,  the Iron Butterfly.  And she lets it all wash over her like rain bearing down on a sunflower.

“They do not know the real me!”, she intimates with a smile.  Still standing tall at 5”8, this energetic 80-year old grandmother has also been known for her charm and her beauty. 

She takes pride in being among a select few in the world who can be identified by simply one name - “Not even the Queen of England is known just as Elizabeth…,” she offers.  “She has to be referred to as Queen Elizabeth the Second…”, a pause,  “but there is only one Imelda…”