In death, top of PMA class ’06 is icon to deserving poor Vincent Cabreza Leoncio Balbin Jr. Inquirer
September 09, 2007
SANTO DOMINGO, Ilocos Sur -- A newspaper account in April that reported his illness, an episode of a TV drama that recalled his father’s violent death, and a recent benefit walkathon have lent drama to the struggle of Air Force 2nd Lt. Ariel Toledo against liver cancer.
But the stories that will give meaning to the death on Wednesday of Toledo, 27, the Philippine Military Academy’s Class 2006 valedictorian, are often lost in the theatrics.
The remains of Toledo, one of the outstanding sons of Santo Domingo, were flown home at 10 a.m. yesterday, accompanied by his fiancee Margaret Encarnacion, who had quit her job as a financial analyst of a beverage company to enroll in a nursing course.
The decision to take up nursing was “basically” for Toledo, “so I would learn how to care for him,” Encarnacion told the Inquirer.
“Every time I asked him if he could still bear it, he always said yes. He never gave up, but his body did,” she said.
The other story no one talks about is how Toledo has become an icon for poor but talented students aspiring for a shot at the PMA.
According to Maj. Gen. Leopoldo Maligalig, the PMA superintendent, many of the cadets entering the academy are from low middle-income to very low-income families who cannot afford a college education on their own after graduating from the public schools.
This trend was discovered in 2004 when Maligalig and his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Cristolito Balaoing Jr., put together a PMA modernization “road map” that will expire in 2015.
“Toledo was a valedictorian, and to us in the academy and the PMA Corps of Cadets, he represents many of our young men and women who grew up from humble beginnings,” Maligalig said, adding:
“Ariel has not died in vain. He is an inspiration to the PMA and for the younger generation to follow his example … to pursue their dreams of wearing the uniform [despite their economic situation].”
According to Maligalig, the attention given to Toledo’s battle against cancer allowed people to also realize that the PMA has long since dropped its image as an elitist institution because of its “very masa (grass roots-based)” cadet population.
“We do attract everybody, [as proven by] those who qualified in the past three years,” as well as the more than 800 applicants who passed last week’s entrance examinations, Maligalig said.
“Whether you are the son of a general or the son of a farmer, you will receive the same food, the same instructions, the same clothes,” he said.
Toledo’s struggle is well documented.
He was the 10th of 12 children born to Prudencio and Pilar Toledo. His father was a member of the defunct Philippine Constabulary.
One of Toledo’s most traumatic experiences was the murder of his father and a brother while he was in grade school.
Toledo worked hard, earning top credits in grade school and high school and was enrolled in a geodetic engineering course at the University of Northern Philippines in Vigan City when he joined the PMA in 2002.
He referred to his family’s poverty in his valedictory speech in 2006, stressing that he would have “chosen to wallow in self-pity and live a mediocre life, but that’s not [where my] will [takes me].”
According to a brother, Domingo, one of their sisters, Zita Torres, worked to finance Toledo’s schooling, anticipating that the young man would shoulder the school requirements of her three children as soon as he received his commission.
Domingo said he and the rest of the siblings were awaiting the arrival of the other sisters, Beatriz and Ely, both working in Canada, so the family could schedule Toledo’s burial.
2nd Lt. Abraham Pasion, Toledo’s “mistah” (classmate) at the PMA Mandirigmang Dangal ng Lahi (Mandala) Class of 2006, accompanied the officer’s flag-draped casket to the family home in Barangay Pussuac.
The casket was placed in a room filled with Toledo’s photographs at the PMA, as well as news clippings about his graduation and his illness.
“Sayang talaga (What a waste). He had inspired many of our youth to follow his footsteps,” Mayor Floro Tadena said.
Toledo was last year’s “Arangkada” (Advance) awardee, the highest award Santo Domingo gives to its outstanding citizens.
PMA cadets were informed of Toledo’s death at the PMA mess hall in Baguio City on Thursday morning, hours after Maligalig received the news from the Armed Forces of the Philippines Medical Center.
Maligalig said the cadets’ morale had already been low because of the deaths of four of Toledo’s mistahs in the ongoing military offensive in Mindanao and a battle in Abra with communist rebels.
It was Maligalig who officially informed officials of Mandala Class about Toledo’s death.
The 324-member class had been shouldering part of Toledo’s hospital expenses, with each member donating part of his or her regular salary as junior officers.
One theory that finds resonance in the PMA is that provincial high schools are not as bad as they have been made to appear by the media.
Maligalig said the speed with which technology changed urban lifestyles would make provincial high schools feel old compared to urban schools equipped with satellite-fed Internet service and cellular phones.
But the urban environment also offers students more distractions that could account for their accomplishments in the PMA, he said.
“The better high schools now come from the provinces. I attribute this to the urban environment. Barrios don’t have [shopping] malls [and] teenagers can go climb mountains or wade through a creek to read a book. But a [student in the urban area] can have all the movies to see [and enough friends to chat with through their] cell phones,” Maligalig said.
He added that going by this theory, more Ariel Toledos were waiting in the wings to make their own valedictory addresses.
