Senator-elect Imee Marcos, whose campaign was set back by inaccurate academic credentials on her CV, recently quipped that attending the Senate orientation for neophytes seemed like “the first day of school” for her.
The daughter of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos went to an orientation seminar that tackled the processes of the institution as organized by the Senate secretariat on June 26, Tuesday.
Neophyte legislators were briefed by the Senate secretariat, sergeant-at-arms, external affairs and relations, legislation department, administration and finance department, gender and development and the bids and awards committee.
The ones who attended are Marcos, Christopher “Bong” Go, Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa and Francis Tolentino.
All of them were accompanied by their staff members.
Prior to the briefing, Go remarked that it felt like he was going back to the school again.
“Para akong pumapasok sa eskwelahan,” he said to reporters.
Marcos shared the same view after the orientation and quipped, “It’s like the first day of school. We’re the newbies.”
Her comment earned reactions from social media users who immediately recalled her questionable academic background and how it has been discredited by different educational institutions.
Academics: A quandary for Imee Marcos
Marcos’ curriculum vitae previously declared that she was a “class valedictorian” at Santa Catalina School, a degree holder of religion and politics “with honors” at Princeton University and a law graduate at the University of the Philippines-Diliman.
Investigation on her claims was initiated by Interaksyon when a viral Reddit post alleged that she failed her subjects as a Princeton student.
It was discovered that the eldest Marcos daughter did not graduate from the Ivy League university, much less with honors.
She only attended the school from 1973 to 1976 and 1977 to 1979, according to Princeton University archivist and public policy papers curator Daniel Linke.
Further, UP executive vice president Teodoro Herbosa said that there was no “record of her graduation from UPD nor any honors or academic distinctions received” during her alleged law school years.
California-based Santa Catalina School also discredited Marcos’ “valedictorian” claims and revealed that she never graduated from the private school at all.
When she was interviewed by broadcast journalist Karen Davila last May, Marcos continuously refused to acknowledge that she had falsified her academic background and said she has nothing to say sorry for.