844 graduating students receive Latin Honors at MMSU Academic Excellence Awards
By Jedd Bryant Boado
Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) recognized 844 graduating students of the Class of 2026 with Latin honors during the Academic Excellence Awards on June 8 at the University Covered Court.
Surpassing the previous record set by the Class of 2025 with 669 awardees, MMSU produced one summa cum laude, 52 magna cum laude, and 791 cum laude graduates this year.
The university also named its first summa cum laude in seven years in the person of BS Biology graduand Chalzea Johanna Raval, who obtained a general weighted average of 1.169. Raval will lead the Class of 2026 as its valedictorian.
During the program, the Top 10 awardees, along with the lone cum laude graduate of the College of Law, Ms. Maxeme Pomoy, received academic excellence awards from Senator Imee Marcos.
In his message, MMSU President Virgilio Julius P. Manzano, Jr. congratulated the awardees on the significant milestones they had achieved. He emphasized that excellence alone is not enough to succeed in the real world and that character is equally important.
“When you apply for a job, employers will not look at your grades or where you graduated from. They will instead assess how you respond to real-life situations and your character,” Dr. Manzano said.
“Let your knowledge be enriched by wisdom, your skills strengthened by character, and your achievements guided by purpose,” he added.
Dr. Manzano also introduced the guest of honor and speaker, Aian Raquel, Head of the Ilocos Norte Tourism Office. A distinguished alumnus of the MMSU Class of 2006, he earned a degree in AB English Studies major in Communication Arts. He completed his Master’s Degree in Exhibition and Experience Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York in 2025.
In his message, Raquel emphasized that the awards that the honor graduates received were not merely symbols of their achievements but a call to live up to what they represent wherever they may go in the future.
“From today forward, you will be the Cum Laude in every room you walk into. The Magna. The Summa. People will measure you against your own honor. You will be expected to be the best new hire, the one who knows the answer, the standard-bearer for the rest of us who did not finish at the top. That is not a burden you can put down. That is the burden you just picked up,” he said.
He also assured the graduates that whether they serve in grand or humble ways in the future, their efforts will matter to the people they serve wholeheartedly.
“There are many ways to serve. Some of you will do big and grand things. Some of you will do small things. The big service makes the news. The small service makes life. Both of them count. Both are gratitude made visible. Both are gratitude felt and made palpable,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, Class of 2026 Salutatorian Jenn Khylei Lacuesta encouraged her fellow graduands not to give in to pressure and to allow themselves to make mistakes, learn, and grow without fear.
“Your only competitor is your own past self. If you focus simply on being slightly better today than you were yesterday—in your career, in your passions, and in your character—you have already secured a profound success,” she shared.
Similar to previous years, the College of Teacher Education had the largest number of awardees with 320, followed by the College of Business, Economics, and Accountancy with 214, the College of Arts and Sciences with 109, the College of Health Sciences with 61, the College of Industrial Technology with 60, the College of Computing and Information Sciences with 38, the College of Engineering with 23, the College of Agriculture, Food, and Sustainable Development with 15, the College of Aquatic Sciences and Applied Technology with two, and one each from the College of Law and the College of Medicine.
The 844 honor graduates will join another 3,061 graduands who will receive their degrees during the 48th MMSU Commencement Exercises, which will be held in two batches on June 10 and 11 at the Sunken Garden.
Jun, 10, 2026 05:20:pm
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