PMA Top 10 over the years: How a harmless event became a cause célèbre

BAGUIO, Philippines – Up to the mid-1990s, no one was interested in the Top 10 cadets of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).

The PMA would just send one-by-one-inch photos of the cadets and a bionote to the Manila broadsheets.

The only event covered by local and national media was the PMA graduation, usually held at the Borromeo Field on a Sunday morning.

It was during the time of former Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Victor Mayo as superintendent from 1996 to 1998 that the local media started covering the Top 10 announcement.

Mayo had karaoke and mini-Olympics with the local media in an effort to make the academy more welcoming to the public.

It was also in 1997 when the first women cadets graduated.

The Magnificent Seven women broke the monotony of the long grey line, which was then all men. Three of the seven even made it to the Top 10.

Now Colonel Leah Lorenzo-Santiago only finished third at the time even if she was the summa cum laude of their class.

Since then, local and national media started covering the Top 10 announcement. Despite comprising only 20% of the class, the women cadets always seemed to be in the Top 10.

With soon-to-be 2nd Lieutenant Jeneth Elumba at the helm, there are now seven women topnotchers in the PMA.

The first was Navy Lieutenant Senior Grade Arlene dela Cruz of Negros Oriental, who became valedictorian in 1999. She, however, died after figuring in a car crash in Subic in December 2008.   

Women cadets soon accomplished everything their male counterparts did.

In 2014, the class goat was also a woman.

The goat is the last-ranked graduate of the PMA. In previous press conferences, even the class goat was introduced to the press.

In the PMA graduations of the past, the goat would perform antics, like breakdancing or giving a speech.

One time, then-president Gloria Arroyo even had the class goat sent to Sulu after his speech.

But the PMA Top 10 press con became a sort of a game for the Baguio media.

For a long time, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, when I was still a correspondent of the broadsheet, seemed to know who the valedictorian would be even before the PMA superintendent did.

For about five years, we were able to scoop the rest that some of the radio announcers even asked the PMA superintendent to stop giving privileged information to the Inquirer.

But the Inquirer was more “enterprising” than the rest.

Soon, PMA became very strict in giving out this information.

One time, the supposed valedictorian was informed about the glad tidings a day before, and he told his parents, who apparently held a press conference in their province.

So I was also surprised when a different valedictorian was announced, and the Facebook page of the provincial newspaper had another valedictorian in its headline.

Other graduates were also “demoted” for being too eager to tell their loved ones of their awards in advance.

The 2024 valedictorian, Cadet 1st Class Jeneth Elumba was told of that she was The One only early Friday morning, May 10.

“We were having a rehearsal today when I was told about it. I cannot tell my parents because our barangay is isolated and the wifi is bad,” she said. – Rappler.com