Imee Marcos


Maria Imelda Josefa Remedios "Imee" Romualdez Marcos-Manotoc is a Filipino politician and film producer serving as a senator since 2019. She previously served as governor of Ilocos Norte from 2010 to 2019 and as the representative of Ilocos Norte's 2nd district from 1998 to 2007. She is a daughter of dictator and 10th Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and convicted former first lady Imelda Marcos, and the older sister of the current president, Bongbong Marcos.
Imee Marcos' political career began during her father's martial law regime, becoming chairperson of the Kabataang Barangay Foundation in 1977 and a member of the Batasang Pambansa in 1984. It was during her KB term that activist Archimedes Trajano was abducted, tortured, and murdered in 1977 shortly after publicly questioning her appointment to the office. With her interest in media, she produced various film projects such as Nonoy Marcelo-directed propaganda films: the 1977 documentary Da Real Makoy and the 1978 television film Tadhana, the first Philippine animated feature film; she helped establish the Metro Manila Popular Music Festival in 1978, and was made director general of the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines in 1982. After her family was ousted from power in the People Power Revolution of 1986, she and her husband Tommy Manotoc were exiled in Morocco.
After the death of Ferdinand Marcos in 1989, President Corazon Aquino allowed the Marcoses to return to the Philippines in 1991. Imee ran for political office in 1998, and won three terms in the House of Representatives and three terms as governor of Ilocos Norte. She was elected to the Senate in the 2019 elections for a six-year term. She ran for re-election in the 2025 midterm elections, and won placing 12th, securing a second term.
Imee Marcos's conviction in the 1993 Trajano v. Marcos case before the U.S. district court in Honolulu is noted in U.S. legal circles for exposing the weaknesses of the act of state doctrine, allowing for similar suits to be filed.
She has been linked to the stolen wealth of her family, identified as a beneficiary of various Marcos offshore holdings as revealed in the Panama Papers and the findings in the court convictions of her mother Imelda Marcos. These holdings were defined as "ill-gotten wealth" by the Supreme Court of the Philippines, and are the subject of repatriation efforts by the Presidential Commission on Good Government. Amidst the growing rift between the Marcos and Duterte families during her brother Bongbong's administration, she has frequently sided with the Dutertes and their allies.

Early life

Imee Marcos was born Maria Imelda Josefa Remedios Romualdez Marcos on the morning of November 12, 1955 at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Mandaluyong to Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos. She has three other siblings: Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., the current president; Irene Marcos-Araneta; and Aimee Marcos, who was adopted.
She turned ten years old the day afterwards her father was elected in 1965. In an interview with her family-backed Filipinas Magazine in 1999, she admitted that she was uncomfortable living in the palace because it was too confining, very formal, and fixed. She also added that it is "not necessarily the most appropriate place to bring up a kid but it was quite nice".
While residing at the palace, Marcos asserted that she attended 'regular' schools in Manila. However, she had to discontinue her education due to the challenges faced by the First Family in going out caused by protest rallies outside Malacañang. These rallies, met with military assaults resulting in numerous Filipino deaths, were a response to her family's enduring conjugal dictatorship that spanned over two decades.

Education

During the 2019 elections, Marcos's educational background has been steeped in controversy. Under her parents' conjugal dictatorship, Marcos graduated from at least four schools, she graduated as "Cum Laude" and "class valedictorian" in two public occasions.

Primary and secondary education

  • Marcos attended the Institucion Teresiana in Quezon City from Kindergarten through Grade 4 where she earned first honors.
  • She transferred to the Convent of Our Lady of Assumption at Herran Street in Manila for Grade 5 to first year high school, where she also earned first honors.
  • Marcos later transferred to the "American School" in Makati.

    Falsification of Santa Catalina high school graduation

Marcos claimed that she graduated as class valedictorian from Santa Catalina Convent in Monterey, California.
On 21 March 2019, the assistant head of the Santa Catalina school, John Aimé, stated the following: "' attended our school for a brief period in the fall of 1972 — she is not a graduate".

Undergraduate education

In 1973, Imee Marcos enrolled at Princeton University, where she took a variety of courses in religion and politics though she did not declare an academic major.
Marcos's stay at Princeton was marred with controversy with black and Asian students protesting her admission for allowing the daughter of a dictator to study at the university and as a potential threat to students who opposed the Marcos regime.
  • She withdrew from Princeton in 1976, returned in 1977, and then withdrew for the last time in 1979. She did not receive any degree from Princeton University.
  • According to a Princeton alumnus Richard Klein in the August 1983 issue of Town Topics, Marcos had flunked out.
In the book Some Are Smarter Than Others, author Ricardo Manapat reveals that after the EDSA revolution, investigators from the Presidential Commission on Good Government found out that Marcos's tuition, monthly allowance, and the 18th-century estate she stayed in while studying at Princeton was paid for using taxpayer money that could be traced partly to the intelligence funds of the Office of the President, and partly to some of the 15 bank accounts that the Marcoses had secretly opened in the US under assumed names.

Falsified claims of graduation from Princeton University

Imee Marcos's time as a student at Princeton became a public issue once again in 2018, when she filed her candidacy for the Philippine Senate in the 2019 elections.
Marcos claimed in numerous venues, including a campaign leaflet and her official website, that she had graduated from Princeton. This resulted in social media uproar which brought up old news articles to show that Imee Marcos had not.
On her campaign website, Marcos uploaded an official biography that claimed that she was "one of the first female graduates from an Ivy League School—Princeton University, graduating with honors," but this claim was quickly disproved by news reports and on social media. In addition, she had stated in her curriculum vitae during her stay in the House of Representatives that she had graduated with honors from Princeton with an "Independent Major in Religion and Politics".
In a later interview with news anchor Tina Marasigan on DZMM TeleRadyo, she was asked whether she really graduated from Princeton or not, and whether her status as a Princeton graduate could be proven. She evaded the question and answered:
The ABS-CBN News network noted that the video went viral as Marcos opted not to answer the question.
This was seconded by InterAksyon, pointing out that Marcos "avoided answering the question and instead diverted the topic to the scholastic records of her brother Bongbong Marcos."
  • In January 2019, the deputy spokesperson of Princeton university, Michael Hotchkiss, stated that their university records "do not show that Ms Marcos was awarded a degree."
  • On 26 February 2019, the student newspaper of Princeton, The Daily Princetonian, reported that Marcos falsely claims that she graduated from the university. In an e-mail message to The Daily Princetonian, Hotchkiss repeated the statement: "Our records do not show that Ms. Marcos was awarded a degree."

    Time at the University of the Philippines, College of Law

After her stay at Princeton, she then enrolled at the University of the Philippines College of Law on 1979 as a day student, originally part of batch 1983. Accordingly, her admission was controversial because the student body protested the fact that she had failed to meet the normal requirement of having a college degree, while they had to go through a stringent admissions process.
  • According to University of the Philippines Cebu, Professor Madrileña de la Cerna, Marcos did not take 35 units worth of courses at the College of Law by the time she was supposed to graduate. Despite the missing units, the college faced political pressure to allow her to graduate, but the faculty, led by Ms. Haydee Yorac, refused to approve her graduation.

    Staged ceremony, mock graduation and honorary claims

A few days after the University of the Philippines held its recognition ceremonies for 1983, a televised recognition ceremony held at the Meralco Theater showed Imee Marcos graduating, and being honored magna cum laude even though she had not actually graduated. The ceremony was pushed by her parents, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, who ruled the Philippines under their conjugal dictatorship.
In the book Some Are Smarter Than Others published in 1991 and written by Ricardo Manapat, the author detailed, "It appeared that Imee never had the proper qualification to enter the school and that her name never appeared in the list of approved graduates nor among the candidates endorsed for graduation by a committee."
Marcos claimed in her curriculum vitae during her time at the House of Representatives that she graduated with a bachelor's degree from the UP College of Law. She also claimed that she graduated magna cum laude.
  • The Executive Vice President of University of the Philippines, Teodoro Herbosa, declared: "There is no record of her graduation from UP nor any honors or academic distinctions received with the University Registrar's office".
A viral Facebook post later circulated in the social platform, claiming that Imee graduated from the University of the Philippines in 1983 as class valedictorian. The post included an alleged yearbook, which had Marcos in it. The yearbook's authenticity was later proven to be false, as Marcos did not appear in any authenticated UP yearbook from 1983. Coincidentally, Marcos's eldest son Borgy was also born in 1983, making it impossible for Marcos to graduate from UP Law on time.
According to former UP Law dean Froilan Bacungan in the book The Turning Point: Twenty-six accounts of February events in the Philippines: