The installation of the Philippine Military Academy’s first female Commandant of Cadets on Saturday, Oct.17, was a reunion of many of the pioneering women who were the country’s very first female cadets, and the men, now part of the military brass, who welcomed them to the Corps of Cadets in 1993.
In a ceremonial turnover rite with top military officials from Kalasag-Lahi Class of 1997, Army Colonel and Brigadier General-designate Leah Lorenzo-Santiago assumed the top job at the PMA Headquarters Tactics Group and commandant of cadets, giving her control over all cadet training activities.
Santiago was Kalasag Lahi’s top third-performing cadet and a summa cum laude when the academy’s first seven female graduates, collectively dubbed the ‘Magnificent Seven,’ were commissioned by the late President Fidel V. Ramos as the military’s first academy-trained female junior officers at their commencement exercise.
The seven included Navy Captain Marissa Arlene Andres-Martinez, director of the Fleet Maritime Warfare Center and current Navy spokesperson, and bemedalled Army Col. Maria Victoria Blancaflor-Agoncillo, a tank commander who now leads the Regional Community Defense Group at the National Capital Region, who showed up at the event.
Santiago said four of the pioneers could not make it to the ceremony because of their jobs and family obligations: Air Force Col. Ma. Consuelo Nunag-Castillo, a combat pilot and Deputy Wing Commander of the 250th
Presidential Airlift Wing, and Arlene Orejana-Trillanes, Sheryl Uy-Cabasan, and Aireen Somera-Reyes, who left military service. Orejana was the first to join the PMA Corps of Professors and is married to outspoken former Senator Antonio Trillanes.
Lt. Gen. Michael Logico, PMA superintendent, acknowledged the importance of the reception given to Santiago’s appointment to the premier military school.
‘We must understand the journey that brought Leah here 33 years ago,’ Logico said, because the 1990s ‘was a different time, because of the different culture.’
‘And there were many mixed thoughts about accepting women into the PMA, but it was an idea whose time has come,’ said the superintendent. Women were officially incorporated in the premier military academy with the passage of Republic Act No. 7192 (the Women in Development and Nation Building Act) in 1992.
Logico said the first female cadets formally joined PMA in the year he and members of Maalab Class of 1993 graduated, earning the distinction as the last ‘all-male class’ of the Academy.
Six of the original roster of the first female cadets attended the ceremony.
Santiago said all of these women ‘faced expectations, overcame obstacles, and carried the responsibility of breaking barriers and proving that we belonged.’
‘Our journey was not always easy, but we endured and grew stronger together,’ she added before launching with a roll call of the nine other women cadets: Ann Brynhilde Andres-Arribas, Crista Marie Baguio, Maria Filipina Rodriguez, Amor Matanguihan-Curaming, Alexandra Noble-Quinto, Nona Helena Junio-Pasaol, Aurora Fontanilla, Rica Cajucom-Ombos, Eleine Faith Teodoro and Sheila De Leon.
Santiago also honored her male classmates for providing the women cadets with ‘support and understanding (which) helped make our journey more bearable and meaningful.’ Eleven attended the event with ranks ranging from commodore to colonel.
Also in attendance was retired Army General and former Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu. Santiago said Cimatu’s principal advice during combat operations in Mindanao was to promise him ‘to stay alive.’
Santiago said: ‘My journey was far from easy, and it certainly did not follow a straight line. After graduation, I faced one of the most difficult and life-changing moments of my life. I figured in a vehicular accident and was found unresponsive. My mother was even informed that I had not survived. In that moment, I saw what seemed to be a light at the end of a tunnel. I ran toward it as fast as I could.’
‘Coming from Charlie Company, I would like to believe that the speed and endurance I had developed helped me make it through that tunnel. And here I am today, standing before you, alive and given another opportunity to serve,’ she said.