page_title: Imee Marcos
section_title: Senator (2019-present)
hierarchical_section_title: Imee Marcos / Post-exile career / Senator (2019-present)
caption_attribution_description: English: President Rodrigo Duterte talks to Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos on the sideline at Waldo and Regine Carpio's wedding ceremony at San Agustin Church in Intramurous, Manila on September 16.
context_page_description: María Imelda Josefa "Imee" Romualdez Marcos is a Filipino politician currently serving as Senator of the Philippines since 2019. She is the daughter of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos and former First Lady Imelda R. Marcos.
  During her father's martial law rule, she played various political roles including chairperson of the Kabataang Barangay and as assemblyman to the Batasang Pambansa, during which Archimedes Trajano was murdered after he questioned the appointment of Imee Marcos as the director of the Kabataang Barangay. She turned 18 - age of majority in the Philippines - just fourteen months after her father's declaration of Martial Law, and was already 30 years old by the time the Marcoses were ousted from power after the 1986 People Power revolution, and escaped to Honolulu.
  After her family was able to return to the Philippines in the 1990s, she served three terms as Representative of the 2nd District of Ilocos Norte in the Philippine House of Representatives from 1998 until 2007 and then became governor of Ilocos Norte. She ran for a senatorial position in the 2019 Philippine general elections, and won a seat in the Senate of the Philippines.
context_section_description: In 2018, she expressed her desire to run for senator "to bring back the Marcoses to Malacañang Palace one day." She filed her certificate of candidacy on October 16, 2018, accidentally arriving at the same time as human rights advocate Chel Diokno, who was also filing his candidacy. Because Chel Diokno's crowds supported his human rights advocacy, political chants quickly transitioned into protest chants concerning the Marcos martial law legacy, including the traditional protest chants "Never Again to Martial Law" and "Marcos Hitler Diktador Tuta!" (Marcos: Hitler, Dictator, Lapdog"). Imee Marcos did not acknowledge either Chel Diokno or the protest chants of his supporters.
  On November 10, 2018, the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan found that she and her siblings benefited from the illegal Swiss foundations that her mother, Imelda Marcos, created and maintained. On November 25, 2018, Marcos said that she intends to 'help' coco farmers once elected; however, she dodged questions regarding her family's involvement in the Coco Levy Fund scam, which used coco farmers to enrich the Marcos family and its cronies.
  Despite the senatorial campaign not yet in effect, Marcos began a premature senatorial campaign in numerous provinces. On January 17, 2019, the government of Cebu City took down political tarpaulins of Marcos that she ordered to be installed in the city during the Sinulog Festival. The city government criticized Marcos for 'politicizing' a religious festivity.
  In her campaigns, she noted that she was a graduate of Princeton University in the United States. However, Princeton deputy university spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss stated that Imee's claim was false and completely fabricated, as she never graduated from Princeton University. At the same time, Imee's claim that she was a cum laude from the University of the Philippines Diliman was found to be fabricated. UP Executive Vice President Teodoro Herbosa noted that "there is no record of [Imee's] graduation from UPD (University of the Philippines Diliman) nor any honors or academic distinctions received with the University Registrar's office." During a February 9, 2019, senatorial debate, Marcos called on the government to remove term limits in elections, sparking criticism. Term limit removal was used by her father, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, in the 1970s which led to a 21-year brutal regime. On March 6, 2019, amid Imee's fake degrees controversy, President Duterte's daughter, Sara Duterte, backed Marcos, stating, "Honesty should not be an election issue," effectively yielding to Imee's fabricated claims. Marcos has also claimed she graduated from Santa Catalina School as "class valedictorian" for more than four decades. On March 21, 2019, Santa Catalina School assistant head of school John Aimé disproved Imee's claims, stating: '[Imee Marcos] attended our school for a brief period in the fall of 1972, she is not a graduate.' After Imee's third educational attainment claim was disproved, the Asian Institute of Management (AIM)'s Registrar and Student Enterprise Director, Bryan Magbutay, reiterated, "In our 50 years of providing world class programs we never offered an MA MBA,” effectively disproving Imee's fourth educational attainment claim.
  In another campaign meet-up, Marcos stated that she was  "too young" to have any power during her father's dictatorship, and that she should not be blamed for the things she did due to her youth. However, records show that she was already 30 years old when her family was ousted from power in 1986.
  On January 25, 2019, Marcos tweeted that Ilocos Norte's poverty incidence rate lessened under her governorship; however, the very same tweet showed poverty incidence rate actually increased during her rule. Poverty reduction rate was 17% in 2006, while it dropped to 5% in 2015. The tweet was afterwards deleted.  In April 2019, Marcos stated that she intends to make working abroad a "matter of choice", however, she dodged questions on her father's dictatorship - which led to the country's economic collapse, forcing Filipinos to 
caption: President Rodrigo Duterte backing the senatorial campaign of Imee Marcos due to "indebtedness".
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