Riceli Mendoza, a former faculty regent at the University of Southern Mindanao (USM), has made an apology for plagiarizing the entire thesis of Jemaima Atok, one of her graduate students.

The USM’s Department of English Language and Literature, where Mendoza used to teach as Professor VI, made her apology statement public in a Facebook post that has garnered 13,000 shares and 21,000 reactions from netizens as of May 7, 2024. 

 “I am very sorry to publish your thesis in my name. I am truly sorry that I failed to recognize you as the author and the owner of the published paper/article. Instead, I claimed it as my own,” Mendoza’s statement read.

Specific details have yet to emerge and parties have yet to respond to The EdLine’s requests for comment.

 Mendoza was a former trustee at the Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and Universities in the Philippines, Inc. and a former quality assurance director of the USM.