Probably one of the, um, interesting (and creepy?) places you can visit is the Marcos Museum and Mausoleum in the heart of Batac City, Ilocos Norte. The mausoleum is where the glass-entombed, preserved corpse of the deposed president Ferdinand Edralin Marcos is found. The dictator died in exile in Hawaii in 1989 and his body was brought to his hometown in Batac awaiting a state funeral at the previously-featured Libingan ng mga Bayani, which no subsequent administration has dared given (though President Estrada had come close to giving it at the start of his term). The mausoleum, visitors say, is a gloomy place only lit with candles and filled with piped Gregorian chant music. Visitors are not allowed to take any pictures of the interior and I think the only time photos were ever taken of Marcos’ corpse was when his widow Imelda visited it for some publicity (see Google Images photos).

The museum is where memorabilia of the late president is stored, from his stint in the Armed Forces down to his presidency. Here, taking pictures are allowed. Among the things you can view here are tons of photos of him and Imelda, military awards, pieces of his writing, and his work desk. I’m not 100% sure but I think the museum houses the office of former Ilocos Norte Representative Imee Marcos, his daughter, and current Ilocos Norte Representative Bongbong Marcos, his son.

This is all conjecture based on written description, but I’m somewhat positive that in the satellite imagery, the museum is the building beside the main road. The mausoleum is probably the partially-covered red-roofed square building immediately to the north (not the white one, which I don’t know what it is) while the large building farther north is the ancestral home of Don Mariano Marcos, the president’s father.

Anyway, this Ilocos Norte tourist page contains nice photos of the compound (scroll the page near the middle) and this amusingly frank travel account by a Korean (well, he calls himself The Jerk) is an interesting read.

Enjoyed this article? Want to read more articles like this in the future? Then subscribe to Vista Pinas either by email or by feed reader/news aggregator. (Powered by Google FeedBurner.)