PMA training ground for future leaders

From the Philippine News Agency (Jan 27, 2019): PMA training ground for future leaders

The Philippine Military Academy (PMA) has proven that the kind of leadership training it is giving to cadets is also applicable anywhere -- in the corporate world or in government bureaucracy outside the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

“We are trying to develop some more the character of our cadets,” which is just part of the four-year training that cadets undergo in the country’s premier military institution, said Lt. Col. Harry Baliaga Jr., PMA’s chief information officer.

He said the cadets’ training is anchored on the Camp Curriculum, which covers character development, academic development, military and physical development -- factors that mold would be leaders of the AFP and of the country.

The PMA, he said continues to produce leaders of character, who are not just good military officers but have become leaders in national government agencies.

Among the most prominent leaders of the country who hailed form PMA was former President Fidel Ramos, who started as a plebe cadet of PMA and went to the United States Military Academy (West Point) as an exchange cadet of the Philippines.

“Mga magagaling na military leaders ang nakikita sa ngayon, karamihan sa mga leaders ng government agencies are products of PMA, sila yung tumutulong sa nation building (we can see good military leaders who are products of PMA now heading government agencies, helping in nation building),” Baliaga said.

Seeing former cadets of PMA doing well and excelling in what they do after military life is not only a source of pride for the academy but also for the cadets, he said.

“We are proud, even the cadets realize that they were not wrong in choosing to study at PMA to be molded as future leaders of the country that is because they can see that the country’s leaders come from this institution.”

The PMA, he said provides a rigid military training to mold a person’s character and provides him the academic knowledge and training to handle situations, as well as prepare the person’s physique to hurdle what is outside the gates of the academy.

“Diyan naka angkla lahat ng pinapagawa sa kadete araw-araw para masiguro na paglabas nila, they are competent, and capable to lead organizations, and units in the field (everything that a cadet does in the academy is anchored on that to make sure that once they go out, they are competent and capable of leading an organization and their units in the field),” said Baliaga.

He said that values formation is embedded in all subjects and everything the cadets do. Those who handle the cadets’ training are also trained and provided with the skill to make them competent in providing the proper training of the country’s future leaders.

The official said that hazing or maltreatment has no place in the academy and in the formation of the cadets.

“It is part of the character development program of the academy where the cadets are molded to be ‘strong’, ‘sturdy’ without subjecting them to physical contact,” he added.

To train the physical well-being of the cadets, they have athletics composed of different sports including combat sports. They are also required to run 18.2 kilometers a week, which they have to honestly complete even without somebody looking at them, “and that is honesty being inculcated in their own system,” said Baliaga.

While there are others who have excelled, there is always “a rotten tomato in a basket”, the reason there are misguided former cadets who go the wrong way.

“That’s our goal, to guide and to direct these young cadets to become successful in their career but they just pass in the academy’s halls for four years,” the officer said.

Baliaga added: “we cannot claim that the bad attitudes some have were obtained in PMA. They just passed here in PMA, four years lang sila dito, nasa kanila kung gusto nilang i-absorb, isabuhay ang trainings na ibinibigay PMA sa kanila kasi the remaining years of their lives and the years before they enter, is with their families, with their community, in some other places so maybe masasabi natin na hindi nila masyadong nain-culcate ang values, culture ng PMA (they only stay here for four years and it is up to them if they will absorb and live by the teachings of PMA. Before they entered the academy and after, they are with their families, in their communities and in some other places. [Those who went the wrong way] maybe the values and the culture of PMA was not inculcated in them),” Baliaga said.

The PMA was set up as a military institution 120 years ago. Through the years, changes were implemented in the system to adapt to the time.

On January 27, some 315 cadets who have “completed” their plebe training -- where the core values of “courage, integrity and loyalty” are inculcated - will be recognized by the Cadet Corps Armed Forces of the Philippines (CCAFP) and the PMA administration.

They were part of the crème de la crème of over 15,000 who took the entrance examination in 2017, during which, 450 were formally received in June 1, 2018.

Baliaga said the recognition is an important stage in a cadet’s life as it signifies that completion of the most rigid part of the training and the shift from being a civilian to a military man.

The recognition rites is a conferment that the upper-class accepts the fourth-class, their actions, actuations and their behavior, including the posture of a “dignified military man” that they should be after having been subjected to pressures of the upper-class corps, academics and physical aspect in the first six months of their military life.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1060166