The chilling adventures of Marcos' corpse

BOULDER, COLO. — Here richly, with ridiculous display,

The Politician's corpse was laid away.

While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,

I wept; for I had longed to see him hanged.

-- Hillaire Belloc, ''Epitaph on the Politician Himself''

BOULDER, Colo. -- Few would have believed that Ferdinand Marcos would be as interesting dead as alive. The few who did were right. The rest of us are simply surprised.

Following Marcos' death, it will be recalled, there was an extended period during which neither his corpse nor his widow was permitted to return to the Philippines from Hawaii, the state to which they moved in 1986 after deciding the Philippines was no longer hospitable.

(The Marcos family moved on a U.S. Air Force C-141 furnished by President and Mrs. Reagan. Because of excess-baggage rules a second plane brought their personal retainers and belongings. The retainers included 88 people such as gardeners and hairdressers and the personal belongings included stocks, jewelry and other goods valued at more than $10 million. Left behind were Imelda's famous 3,000 pairs of shoes, her bed -- reportedly 10 feet wide -- 500 black brassieres and their daughter's pornographic movie collection. She had been in charge of cultural affairs before the family moved to Hawaii.)

Round-the-clock "Messiah"

Because of the ban on the return of Imelda and her dead husband, Imelda bought him a refrigerated casket and kept him in a closet at home where, according to reports, Handel's ''Messiah'' was piped in 24 hours a day. In 1990 she threw a birthday party for the corpse, wheeling him into the living room where invited friends and neighbors gathered round as Imelda sang a rousing chorus of ''Happy Birthday'' to the corpse.

He probably welcomed the tribute, if for no other reason than American culture to the contrary notwithstanding, it is possible to tire of Handel's ''Messiah,'' especially if played 24 hours a day.

In 1991 the Philippine government agreed that Imelda could return to the Philippines. At first she insisted that she would accept the invitation to return only if her husband's musically saturated corpse could accompany her. Upon sober reflection, however, she changed her mind and returned to the Philippines leaving her husband and the ''Messiah'' in Hawaii.

In 1992 the government decided that the Marcos corpse could return home following the 1992 election. However, he could only return to his home town of Batac instead of being buried in Manila as Imelda wanted.

A romantic occasion

According to a report by Bob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times, Imelda said that if Ferdie was buried in his hometown it would be only a ''temporary burial'' until the corpse could be moved to Manila. She said ''we'll dig him up and move him down and bury him again. We do that all the time.'' (According to the report, a caustic aide hearing Imelda's comment about the peripatetic corpse said she'd be taking ''Ferdie from the fridge'' May 1, their wedding anniversary. As the aide explained: ''It'll be very romantic. She'll be in white, he'll be defrosting.'')

As it turned out, that's not quite how it's worked out. Ferdie did come home and was placed in a glass coffin beneath the Seal of the Presidency in front of an eternal flame. He is dressed in a white native Barong long-sleeved shirt and a rainbow colored chest sash bearing medals from World War II that were presumably purchased, since a U.S. State Department spokesman said Marcos was never a World War II hero. Handel was, according to reports, fired after the corpse entered its new home and a new entertainer was hired -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Everyone thought that was the end of it. Everyone was wrong.

In early March of this year the corpse was once again in the news -- this time because it was reportedly a dead-beat. According to reports, a dispute had arisen over electric bills the corpse incurred while being kept cool for posterity and amused by Mozart. The electric bill for these two tasks had risen to $214,500. The corpse was unable to pay the bills for obvious reasons, and the family was unwilling to do so.

Power outage

In an attempt to bring the dispute to a head, on March 4, Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative pulled the plug. Never at a loss for words (even if at a loss for money) and responding to what she perceived to be an outrage, Imelda was quoted as saying: ''This is the ultimate harassment, the harassment of the dead who cannot speak up to defend himself.'' Of course, so long as he has her as a mouthpiece he hardly needs to speak up for himself.