FORT DEL PILAR, Baguio City -- The new graduates of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Sanghaya Class 2000 have gotten their first order from their commander-in-chief: help end the armed conflict and bring peace in Mindanao.
In his commencement speech yesterday before 240 members of the PMA's graduating class, President Estrada said the government cannot create enough jobs, livelihood, food and opportunities in poverty- stricken areas not because government does not want to, but because the peace and order situation does not permit it.
"You graduate today at a critical time when we need to marshal our confidence and energies to bring the true and genuine peace in benighted areas of our land, particularly in the South, in Mindanao," Mr. Estrada said.
"We have extended our perseverance and have stretched our patience and understanding. We have expressed our willingness to negotiate and compromise with separatist and rebel groups. We have increased our tolerance, but we will not be threatened or intimidated," the President said.
He said the government's thrust in ending the armed conflict in Mindanao does not only include military operations, but also through "productive activities of building bridges and roads, of constructing infrastructure, of providing community service, of ensuring development and growth."
The President noted that despite the peace efforts initiated by the government with the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the communist New People's Army (NPA), terrorist attacks continue to affect the economy and claim lives.
He said the government and the people "will not allow any misguided spirit to bring havoc to the serenity of our lives, the integrity of our Republic, the strength of democracy."
"We agonize and die a little every time an innocent life is taken, or a hostage is seized, or properties and villages are plundered and pillaged. We die a little when we see disturbing images and faces of poverty that haunt and oppress our people," Mr. Estrada said.
"We are dismayed because the years of conflict in Mindanao have not allowed us to securely bring huge amounts of business and investments there to develop its full potentials and thereby create a climate that will fulfill its promise," he said.
The new officers, who are either second lieutenants in the Army and Air Force or ensigns in the Navy, have also to face the challenges of the rapid changes in the country and in the global environment, he added.
Among these challenges are "globalization, new technologies, advanced states of communication and electronics, and increasing financial and economic integration."
"Ang labanan ngayon ay bansa sa bansa sa larangan ng ekonomiya. At kung hindi tayo magkakaisa, tayo ay tuluyan nang mapagiiwanan (The fight today is country against country in the field of economics. If we will not unite, we will be left behind)," the President said.
"We cannot simply limp into this new international economic order without putting our house in order. We must have a peaceful society that will allow us to compete internationally," he said.
The pursuit of peace, he maintained, is not obsolete and remains as the "defining standard by which progress can be achieved."
Meanwhile, the ceremonies yesterday also marked a departure from tradition as Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was not around to hand the vice presidential saber to the class salutatorian.
A member of the Vice President's staff handed her saber to Cadet Juan Estive Celebrado, even as the President himself handed the presidential saber to valedictorian Cadet Paul Anthony Aviquivil.
Arroyo is presently in China on an official visit.
A former cadet is still waiting for a chance to clear his name a couple of years after he was kicked out of the academy for alleged cheating.
Remus Rabara, who graduated at the top of his class at the Baguio City National High School in 1995, was in his second year in the PMA in 1998 when he was "falsely accused" of copying the homework of an academically-deficient barracks roommate instead of the other way around.
Rabara has been asking for a court martial for the past two years in order to get a chance to clear his name. But the PMA leadership has reportedly turned a deaf ear to his appeal.
Some vindication, however, has already arrived for Rabara --whose father Col. Godofredo Rabara was the deputy chief of the Special Forces Command --when the student he was supposed to have copied his philosophy assignment from eventually also got kicked out for another cheating case 20 months later. --With Aurora Alambra