The embalmed body of Ferdinand Marcos (1917–89) is laid out on a mattress and lit by floodlights in an otherwise dark sepulchre at the Marcos Museum & Mausoleum. Full creepiness is achieved by eerie choral music played on a continuous loop. The mausoleum is located in Batac, a town where Marcos spent his childhood, 15km south of Laoag; take a jeepney from Hernando Ave.
It’s a sign of the family’s continued political influence that the body was allowed to be returned to his boyhood home. And it’s testament to the ambivalence (and often outright hostility) to Marcos’ legacy that prompts many Filipinos to suspect the body is simply a wax figure, one last-ditch con by the master puppet master.
The impressive Marcos ancestral home is next door (but closed to the public), with some reverential displays out front.
