Reflections on the Coconut Palace M.G. Warenycia (October, 2013) In the Philippines there is a structure known colloquially as the “Coconut Palace” (Official/Tagalog name: Tahanang Pilipino, or “Filipino Home”). It is a vast building, somewhere between a presidential palace and an exotic luxury hotel, famous – or rather, infamous – as a symbol of the corruption and extravagance amid crushing poverty and underdevelopment that is the classic picture of the Philippines during the Marcos era (a legacy, it is well to mention, which has been dutifully carried on by successive governments of various political stripes); a gaudy, bizarre, apparently impractical symbol almost on par with Imelda’s famous shoe collection. To provide a brief description, the Coconut Palace is 32,292 square feet, resembling a thatched hut in the vernacular style (or a beachside tourist resort, if you want to look at it that way) which has expanded and multiplied itself. Constructed entirely of local materials, particularly a kind of engineered coconut lumber named for Imelda herself – hence its name – the building showcases the many uses of the coconut – “the real tree of life” according to Imelda, and I would agree with her on this – as well as the natives artistic and architectural islands of the numerous regions of the Philippines archipelago (there are guest rooms named after each region and decorated accordingly). In keeping with the local pride theme, the roof is shaped like a traditional Filipino salakot hat and the palace itself is shaped like an octagon, which is the shape a coconut is cut into before being served – you know, a green coconut, where the server sticks a straw in the top for one to drink out of, such as one might buy in Chinatown or in an “ethnic” restaurant (pick your tropical cuisine) in this country. Some of its more unique features include a chandelier with 101 coconut shells holding the lights and a dining table made from 40,000 tiny pieces of inlaid coconut shells. The palace performed (and now, for the Vice President, again performs) the dual function of official residence and guest house for foreign celebrities and dignitaries (it seems that Hollywood celebrities, especially, were among the Marcos’ most regular guests, perhaps because they could be less concerned about the possible negative publicity resulting from indulging in such luxury in a place, the suffering and unrest of whose people were fodder for international media in the 1980s. A side, in the America of Marcos’