Tearful Imelda arrives home late

TEARFUL, lame, but unbowed, Imelda Marcos said yesterday that she loved her country and would never run away, as government lawyers tried to have the former first lady arrested for returning late from a foreign trip.

Marcos flew back to the Philippines from London on Wednesday, overshooting by 10 days a deadline set by a graft court that is trying her on corruption charges related to late dictator Ferdinand Marcos's two-decade rule.

The court had granted her a 30-day travel permit to visit the US and Europe on medical and religious grounds, but some newspapers reported she had been spotted in Italy quaffing wine in restaurants and shopping for luxury goods.

Marcos, whose powers of persuasion are as legendary as her enormous shoe collection, said the last leg of her trip in Britain had been necessary because eye experts treating her are based there.

The 74-year-old Marcos cried throughout her talk to reporters after the 50-minute hearing, lifting up a trouser leg to show a swollen, bandaged knee, the apparent result of arthritis. Marcos is facing dozens of criminal charges and civil lawsuits over allegations that she and the late president salted away more than $5 billion. She is due back in court today.

“I won’t flee,” Marcos said, wiping away the tears rolling freely down on her cheeks. Before she met Ferdinand, the glamorous young Imelda of the 1960s once persuaded the mayor of Manila to overturn the result of a beauty contest and declare her the winner.