Louise “Liza” Araneta-Marcos, 62, has been at the receiving end of unexpected gifts ever since her husband, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr filed his presidential bid in October. “People are giving me outfits and shoes and we haven’t even started,” said the daughter-in-law of former First Lady Imelda Marcos who became world famous for her shoe fetish. The term “Imeldific” was even coined after her to describe someone “ostentatiously extravagant, sometimes to the point of vulgarity.” In 2018, the elder Mrs Marcos was convicted of seven counts of corruption and sentenced to life in prison but, to this day, has not been jailed while her cases are being appealed. Liza was asked, in a rare interview on Wednesday by prominent publicist Boy Abunda, what she thought about turning into “the art and culture, fashion ambassador everybody will be watching” when her husband wins. She replied off-topic: “You know when they did this whole thing about my mother-in-law having 3000 pairs of shoes, right? And now in this campaign people are giving me outfits and shoes and we haven’t even started.” But she excused the sizeable shoe collection by pointing out that her mother-in-law was “First Lady for 30 years. Imagine how much stuff accumulates.” Mrs Marcos was actually First Lady of the Philippines for two decades from 1965 to February 1986 when Filipinos – angered by her purchases of New York buildings, mansions and extravagant jewellery – chased the family out of Malacanang Palace. Marcos widening lead over Robredo in Philippine presidential race: poll Liza said she did not want to think of her role beyond the campaign because “I don’t want to jinx it, because in 2016 we really thought we’d win and it was really painful.” When pressed to name her “role model” for a First Lady, Liza shook her head and said, “No, my role model is me”, then laughed and added, “maybe my mom or my lola [grandmother]. That’s as far as I should go.” Abunda asked the lawyer if she would be a “politically involved” First Lady like her mother-in-law, who wielded vast political powers alongside her husband, making critics call the regime “a conjugal dictatorship”. Why Philippines’ Marcos Jnr is wary of debates in presidential election Liza Marcos replied tentatively: “Maybe, well, I’ll cross the bridge when I get there but, if ever, teaching would be good. I’m a lawyer but to enter government? No, they can’t afford me,” she said with a toss of her head. “And I’ll fire all of them,” she jokingly added. She will not be like Imelda was the separate assessment of two analysts. “She will be the one actually running the country,” Manolo Quezon, a political analyst and historian, posted on Twitter. Rafael “Apa” Ongpin, a businessman, writer and close family friend, agreed. “Actually, if she were running for president she’d be an excellent candidate.” Philippines’ Marcos Jnr wants military presence to ‘defend’ South China Sea “She has run her firm, MOST, very well. It has become one of the top law firms in the country. She did it through competence,” he said. She’s not a pushover. She’s not a Marcos. She’s an Araneta.” Ongpin described her as “not at all” like her mother-in-law: “Imelda’s not all there. She’s pretty much loony tunes. Liza, apart from being very intelligent and well educated, has credible character. She is very strong, much stronger than [Bongbong] is.” Liza earned two degrees from the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University – one in Interdisciplinary Studies, the other in law. As a young lawyer, she worked for four years in New York – where she first met Marcos while he was accompanying his parents to their anti-racketeering court trial in New York. Philippine election body dismisses petition to bar ‘Bongbong’ from election After the elder Marcos died in 1989, Imelda was left to face the charges that the couple had funnelled state funds, received kickbacks and commissions into purchasing New York buildings, including what is now the Trump Tower. She had pleaded “not guilty” by claiming to be a “simple housewife”. The jury acquitted her saying she should have been tried in Manila, not New York. Judge John Keenan even said it was not his job to enforce Philippine laws. Against this backdrop, Liza and Bongbong dated. Contrary to media reports calling it a romance involving two warring families, Ongpin said: “It’s not a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing because the Marcoses and the Aranetas are the opposite of enemies. There are other characters in that family who were sort of cronies with the Marcoses.” Some members of the wealthy Araneta clan have mixed political leanings. Two of Liza’s uncles, Antonio Araneta Jnr and Gerardo Roxas, had opposed the Marcos dictatorship; while a cousin, Gregorio Araneta III, married Bongbong’s youngest sister, Irene in 1983. Liza married Bongbong 10 years later in 1993. “For someone so intelligent, he’s so kind. That’s why I married him.” Also, he made her laugh. A third political analyst who asked not to be identified described Liza as the brains and strategist behind her husband’s campaign. During the interview, Liza admitted to having a temper unlike her husband who “doesn’t shout or scream. Me, I do when I’m mad”, and to being mataray (bitchy) and standing her ground when she feels she is right. Sara Duterte could still be Philippine president, admits Marcos She disclosed that her husband decided to run for president only six months ago while watching the Marvel action movie, Ant Man. “One day, we were watching ‘Ant Man’ in the room, because we love Marvel movies, and then he looked at me and he goes, ‘OK, we’re gonna do this’.” “I said, ‘do what?’ ‘Run for the presidency’, he said.” She said she neither encouraged nor discouraged him because his 2016 loss in the vice-presidential race was “really a painful experience for him.” This loss continues to haunt them and make them wary of his early lead today, she said. Philippine presidential front runner ducks South China Sea issue The revelation, that a comic book hero had inspired the dictator’s son to run, went viral for the wrong reason. “Ant Man was a thief, right?” said presidential aspirant Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko” Domagoso on Friday. Ongpin said he found it “ironic” and “funny” that Bongbong would identify himself with “the Ant Man character [who] was a burglar, a criminal, who acquired powers and decided to leave the life of crime. The particular crime was funny – theft – because the Marcoses are accused of being thieves.” Bongbong’s parents have been accused of stealing up to US$10 billion and Ruben Carranza, a former commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, also accused Bongbong of running for president so his family could “keep the money they took.” “I don’t think they really thought this [Ant Man] through,” Ongpin said.