Batangueña tops PMA graduating class

“TALANG DANGAL” Cadet First Class (C1C) Christine Kay Librada (fifth from left) leads the 207 members of the graduating “Talang Dangal” Class of the Philippine Military Academy. Joining Librada in the top 10 are fellow C1C Mark John Vincent Catacutan, Thomas Sepulchre, Ian Harold Hubilla, Maeg Adriene Bermudez, Cherry Mae Geco, Elixa Anya Hernandez, Catherine de Chavez, Cedric Cyril Polizon and Mark Clement Centina. —VINCENT CABREZA

FORT DEL PILAR, BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — Cadet First Class Christine Kay Librada, a native of Lipa City in Batangas, adds her name to the expanding list of women who broke the glass ceiling by topping this year’s 207-member graduating class at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), the country’s premier military school.

Librada’s “Talang Dangal” Class of 2026 embodies the PMA’s transition to a 21st-century learning facility that trains cadets in drone warfare, educates them in artificial intelligence (AI)-aided strategic and diagnostic thinking, and provides them a firsthand look at the territorial threats confronting the country today.

Talang Dangal is short for “Tagapagtanggol ng Lahing Dakila at Marangal” (Defenders of a noble and dignified race).

The class visited Pag-asa (Thitu) Island as part of their final field training exercises in April and stood up to a Chinese naval challenge during that trip, said Navy Vice Adm. Caesar Bernard Valencia, the PMA superintendent.

READ: 207 PMA cadets of Talang Dangal graduating on May 16

Valencia on Wednesday announced the top 10 graduating cadets, exactly 10 days before their commencement exercises on May 16.

The 207 members of Talang Dangal will be commissioned by President Marcos next week as junior officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The graduating class is composed of 65 female cadets and 142 male cadets. Of them, 76 are joining the Army, 69 the Navy, and 62 the Air Force.

Librada, 23, was a psychology undergraduate of the De La Salle University when she decided to enter the academy.

She is the ninth female cadet to lead the top 10, after the late Arlene dela Cruz in 1999, Tara Velasco (2003), Andrelee Mojica (2007), Rovi Mairel Martinez (2017), Dionne Mae Umalla (2019), Gemalyn Sugui (2020), Krystleann Ivany Quemado (2022) and Jeneth Elumba (2024), according to Navy Lt. Commander Jesse Nestor Saludo, chief of the PMA’s Office of Public Affairs.

Realization

Speaking to reporters, Librada said she had not intended to pursue a military career like her retired father, a colonel, until she joined one of his civic-military projects in Lanao del Sur at the age of 19. There, she realized that “the military does not only [focus on protecting] national security but also socioeconomic and human security.”

Librada is among the five female cadets who make up this year’s top 10, including C1C Maeg Adriene Bermudez of Moncada, Tarlac, 24, who ranked fifth and was a student at the University of the Philippines (UP) Baguio; C1C Cherry Mae Geco of Capiz, 24, who ranks sixth and was previously enrolled at UP Visayas; C1C Elixa Anya Hernandez, 22, a high school valedictorian from Batangas, seventh; and C1C Catherine de Chavez, 22, also from Batangas, who was in the dean’s list at the Batangas State University, eighth.

C1C Mark John Vincent Catacutan, 22, of Pagadian City in Zamboanga del Sur, took the second spot and was in the chancellor’s list while he was enrolled at the Mindanao State University (MSU)-Iligan Institute of Technology. He is followed by C1C Thomas Sepulchre, 23, of Angeles City, Pampanga, who was a high school honors student; C1C Ian Harold Hubilla, 23, of Sorsogon City, who was a university scholar at UP Los Baños; C1C Cedric Cyril Polizon, 24, an orphan from Surigao del Sur (ninth) who achieved high honors at MSU; and C1C Mark Clement Centina, 24, of Cadiz City, Negros Occidental, who was a university scholar at UP Visayas.

Training shift

Talang Dangal is the first class to “truly embrace” the training shift from the conventional military standards to territorial defense after President Marcos, the Commander in Chief, and Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. urged the PMA in 2024 to adapt to the swift technological changes, like cyberterrorism, which have reshaped modern warfare, Valencia said.

A new curriculum that includes digital warfare courses has been cleared by the Department of National Defense and would be applied to cadets in 2028, he said, so Talang Dangal members were instead given “microcredentials” or electives in “AI, python programming skills, electronic analytics and unmanned (military) systems.”

Electronic games have become valuable tools for teaching cadets mental dexterity, Valencia added.

Cadets, he said, have also been sent out to foreign competitions to learn international standards that could be absorbed by the PMA.

A rehaul of the cadet diet, for example, is now being reviewed to increase their protein intake and reduce the amount of rice-driven carbohydrates in their meals.

Physical exercises may also focus on improving upper body strength after examining athletic programs in other countries.

But the trips to Pag-asa Island and other parts of the West Philippine Sea have been critical training projects that help cadets understand what they are fighting for, Valencia said.

The PMA has also drawn up a “growth plan,” which would increase its capacity to train up to 2,000 cadets by 2040, he added.

The academy’s current cadet population is 1,300, but the PMA will seek a bigger budget for 2027 for 1,400 cadets, Valencia said. /cb