SANDRO ON HIS OWN HIGH PROFILE Jojo G. Silvestre
Sandro would rather focus on his job and would not even think of the elections in 2022
Although Ilocos Norte is not exactly wilderness, going straight to London after grade six in his home province was quite an astounding experience for Sandro Marcos, the eldest of the three sons of former Senator Bongbong and Atty. Lisa Marcos. While he might have been following after his father’s footsteps who attended the same boarding school, Worth Abbey, it was a totally new experience for Sandro. “I had a culture shock,” he revealed to the hosts when he recently guested at the Daily Tribune Facebook and YouTube online show, Spotlight. “Imagine an 11-year-old boy from Ilocos Norte moving straight to the UK,” he recalled.
To be sure, it was not a wasteful adventure, as the first shock eventually transformed into a life-changing positive experience. “It was fun,” he admitted. “I learned a lot there and it equipped me well.” To Sandro, “boarding school was like having a sleepover with your friends every night. It was like going to camp and spending every day with them.” It also allowed him to form enduring alliances.
He said, “I’d be lying if I said that my friends in boarding school aren’t going to be my friends for life because they really are and every time I go back to UK, we catch up and it will probably be like that for the duration of time. I spent a large part of my life with them every day so I always take it as a very good experience.”
But there was more, as the boy turned into a man. “More than anything, boarding school taught me to be independent which I think is something that I would not have done here.”
And, of course, it was the kind of education that prepared him for undergraduate studies at City University of London where he majored in International Politics and, thereafter, graduate school at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), which counts among its alumni and faculty 18 Nobel Prize winners.
Sandro explained, “My plan had always been to study in London. I found the City University of London to be very interesting because they had international politics which I always liked., And then for my master’s, I went to the London School of Economics which of course is regarded as one of the best schools in the country if not the world. I saw it as a good opportunity, a good chance to be with the best and brightest minds that education has to offer.”
“I was in the library from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.,” he recalled. I studied there every day. It was a rewarding experience. And you know I took a lot out of it. I put a lot in, but I got a lot out also.”
Outside of academic work, Sandro found a certain peace in the Home of the Big Ben because “It allowed me to take a step back and allowed me to be my own person.”
He said, “I didn’t have to think about being part of a certain family. I could be just Sandro. It was refreshing and something that I needed in my life.”
If only for the fact that he made it in a school that imposes stringent requirements for its students to graduate, Sandro does not pose any doubt as to whether he is one of those rich, spoiled guys who only look good and smell good but do not have much in between their ears, to use the expression.
Okay, when it comes to his looks, his admirers, especially girls, can only swoon over his delightful, innocent face. Or they can imagine him to be the perfect escort, if not a steady boyfriend. But those who are aware of his stock would have a hard time deciding from whom he got his engaging countenance. An obvious answer would be his mother, or the Araneta side, which is more related to Amading of Araneta Coliseum fame than to Salvador of the Araneta University family, the latter being closer to the Greggy and Irene connection.
But when he guested at Spotlight, and his hair had been parted exactly as how his paternal grandfather, Ferdinand Marcos, used to comb his hair, there was no mistaking Sandro descends directly from the late President.
As Dinah, the lady host, remarked during the interview, “I was looking at your pictures, Sandro, and you look like your mom, but right now I’m looking at you and I can see your Marcos side. I think it’s the hair or the face shape.”
As to why he had what it took to obtain an LSE diploma, it’s a no-brainer to imagine his mother being the lawyer Lisa, and his father, Bongbong, who is the son of a brilliant father, no matter if there are those who would debate over the way he conducted governance for 20 years.
Yet, he shrugged off the insinuation about his giftedness. Instead, he managed to turn the idea into a fodder for humor, one directed at his mother. “Every time people ask me what kind of girl I want to marry, I always say, ‘Anyone who is half as brilliant as my mother.’ Which is my way of sucking it up to her,” he said laughingly.
On whether he has a love life, he candidly replied, “This would sound like a cliché but we are working too hard to have a love life right now. I am focusing on myself first, and I am enjoying that part honestly. I am happy where I am right now.”
Indeed, Sandro would rather focus on his job, and would not even think of the election in 2022. The pandemic, too, would not allow him to look beyond “We never thought that quarantine would happen but, seven months after, we are here. I don’t know what I would be in 10 years’ time. I just hope that I am excelling in whatever I do.”
His advice to young people: “At my age, I’ve learned the most by being uncomfortable. Not naman in the traditional sense, but you know, by putting myself in situations which I’ve learned from the most. That’s why I worked in the Congress ---- because I knew nothing about it. I think it’s from the situations where you have the hardest time that you come out with the highest utility, which is life experiences.
“So, I guess, if there is one thing I could say, at our age, let’s just put ourselves in as many uncomfortable situations as possible because that’s where you learn best from.”