“Taking after her mother, Pura, who was the first Carnival Queen, she, too, was accorded the same honor 23 years later, even as she distinguished herself in the University of the Philippines where she majored in Philosophy and later pursued her master's degree in social work. A Barbour Scholarship awardee, she finished her master's degree in literature at the University of Michigan. She obtained her doctorate of philosophy in social science at the University of Santo Tomas with magna cum laude honors.”