Filipinos Shocked, Disbelieving : Marcos’ Video Collection Reveals Wild Disco Parties

The massive private video collection of deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos made available today revealed wild disco parties, costume balls and a birthday bash at which a fat man in baby clothes burst from a giant cake.

Hundreds of hours of Marcos’ “home movies,” filmed over the years by an exclusive presidential camera crew and made available to Western television networks today, marked the extravagant life style of the 20-year ruler.

CBS News footage broadcast nationwide on Philippine television tonight showed Marcos’ wife, Imelda, dressed in a clinging, low-cut lavender evening gown, disco dancing with Vernon MacCaninch, former U.S. consul general in Manila, on board the presidential yacht Ang Pangulo last September.

The costume party, a birthday extravaganza thrown for Marcos’ 30-year-old daughter, Irene, featured a fat man dressed in a pink baby bonnet and blue-and-pink diapers who burst out of a huge paper cake crying, “Mama, mama!”

As the evening wore on, Marcos’ son, Ferdinand (Bong Bong) Marcos Jr., wearing oversized black-rimmed glasses and a blinking red bow tie, grabbed a microphone and laughingly crooned a rowdy version of “We Are the World,” theme song of the campaign by noted entertainers to raise money for African famine relief.

“There are people dying, it’s time to lend a hand,” he sang, flanked by a woman with multicolored hair and men with punk haircuts and painted faces.

The private movies, formerly kept secret from the public, drew strong reactions from some Filipinos for the glimpse they offered into the lavish life style and entertaining of the Marcos family.

“Oh, my God!” one Filipino exclaimed in disbelief while watching Marcos and Imelda swinging and strutting at a party in their private, two-room disco in Manila’s Malacanang Palace--their home for two decades.

The films show many other costly bashes hosted by Marcos for his family, friends and political allies--at Malacanang, at the mountain summer palace of Baguio City and at private luxury homes.