Imelda Remedios Visitacion Romualdez-Marcos (born Imelda Remedios Visitacion Trinidad Romualdez on July 2, 1929) is the widow of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and is herself an influential political figure in the Philippines. She is known as the "Steel Butterfly" due to her role as a controversial figure not only in her home country but also around the world. In 1996, the Australian Magazine ranked her 58th among "The 100 Most Powerful Women in the World". Newsweek, meanwhile, listed her in 2009 as one of the "Greediest People of All Time", to which she said "I plead guilty". Her extensive shoe, gown, and jewelry collections have allowed her to gain notoriety.

Early life

Imelda Remedios Visitacion Romualdez-Marcos was born on July 2, 1929 in San Juan de Dios Hospital in Manila. Her parents were Vicente Orestes Lopez Romualdez (of Spanish-Filipino blood) and Remedios Trinidad (1902-1938) , the second wife of the widowed Vicente. She is of Visayan and Tagalog descent. Her paternal ancestors, the wealthy and prominent Lopezes of Leyte (The eldest daughter of Friar Francisco Lopez, the Lopez patriarch, Doña Trinidad Lopez Romualdez is Imelda's paternal grandmother), claimed to have founded the town of Tolosa, Leyte Kerima Polotan, "Imelda Romualdez Marcos, A Biography of the First Lady of the Philippines", The World Publishing Company, Ohio. Her own branch of the family was not political. Her father was a scholarly man more interested in music and culture than in public life. Her mother, Remedios Trinidad, a dressmaker who grew up in an orphanage in Manila, said to have been an illegitimate offspring of a friar,Katherine Ellison, Imelda, Steel Butterfly of the Philippines, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1988. ISBN 0-07-019335-5 was from the town of Baliuag, Bulacan.

Imelda spent her childhood in the shadow of the Malacañang Palace in San Miguel District in Manila, since her family then lived near San Miguel Church. After Imelda's mother Remedios died, and their home foreclosed, her father, Vicente, moved his family back to Leyte to live with relatives, where Imelda earned a bachelor's degree in education at St. Paul's College."Carmen Navarytro Pedrosa. The Untold Story of Imelda Marcos, Manila: Bookmark, 1969, p. 3-4.

She also became a beauty queen. At the age of 18, she was crowned the "Rose of Tacloban," became "Miss Leyte", went to Manila in 1953. Her photogenic face soon graced many of Manila's magazine covers and she was named the "Muse of Manila" by then Manila Mayor, Arsenio Lacson, a special title given her after she protested her loss in the Miss Manila pageant. In 1954, Imelda met then-Ilocos Norte Congressman Ferdinand E. Marcos. After a whirlwind courtship in Baguio during Holy Week, they were married in May of that year at the Manila Pro-Cathedral Church with President Ramon Magsaysay as principal sponsor. They have four children: Maria Imelda "Imee" Marcos, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr., Irene Marcos, and Aimee Marcos, who was adopted.