Muslim youth leader, Badjao top PNPA grads

Macdum Enca and Midzfar Omar. Photos from Facebook

Cadets from Mindanao dominated this year’s top 10 graduates of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA).

Cadet Macdum Enca, who is leading the 144-member graduating Masidlak class, said his “passion to help” drove him to enter the police academy in Silang town in Cavite province.

In high school, the Cotabato City-raised Enca joined the nongovernmental organization United Voices for Peace Network that helps poor families in conflict areas in Mindanao.

“I kind of developed the sense and passion for helping other people,” said Enca, 22.

The fourth of six siblings, Enca is the first in the family who will join the Philippine National Police (PNP). His father, Yacobnor Enca, 59, is a civil engineer while his mother, Zainab, 60, is a public elementary school teacher.

Enca took up electronics and communications engineering at the University of Southeastern Philippines as a scholar of the Department of Science and Technology, but dropped out after a year when he learned that he passed the PNPA entrance exam in 2012.

Before joining the academy, he also became part of a one-year student exchange program of the nonprofit American Field Services Intercultural Programs in St. Louis, Missouri.

There, he said, he was able to observe foreign culture and in turn, introduce the culture of Filipino Muslims.

“Being a Muslim should never be a hindrance to our desire to help. Whether a Christian or a Muslim, it doesn’t matter to the Almighty,” he said.

Cadet Midzfar Omar, 21, the second top ranking cadet, is joining the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).

As a child, he remembered their house by the shore in Tawi-Tawi, like those of other Badjaos known for their sea dwellings.

“When things got a little better, we eventually built a house on land,” Omar said.

His father Mohammad Nuhil, 54, works as a cashier at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, while his mother Suaida, 46, is a housewife. He is fourth of eight children.

After graduating at the Mindanao State University Science High School, Omar said he wanted to take up medicine but he knew his family could not afford it.

He grabbed the opportunity for free college education when he qualified to the police academy.

Omar said he was driven to get a degree and was thankful to his parents for supporting him.

“Only through education that Badjaos can show that we are not inferior; that we, too, can excel,” he said.

Other top graduates are: Janace Elcid Pascua Layug (Tondo, Manila), third; Juan Paulo Alday Porciuncula (Sta. Maria, Bulacan), fourth; Harley Glenn Bacarro Galpo (Cagayan de Oro City), fifth; Sailani Bacarat Armama (Cagayan de Oro City), sixth; Michael Salendab Daunotan (Sultan Kudarat), seventh; Ian Rey Canen Diolanto (Polomolok, South Cotabato), eighth; Michael John Suniega Sentinta (Isulan, Sultan Kudarat), ninth; and Maysy Villaflor Cataquiz (Quezon), tenth.