340 new cadets enter PMA under new curriculum

WELCOME Some of the 340 incoming cadets of Class 2029 of the Philippine Military Academy undergo physical tests at their reception rites at the academy’s grounds in Baguio City on Sunday. —PHOTO COURTESY OF PHILIPPINE MILITARY ACADEMY

BAGUIO CITY—Around 340 first-year cadets, 66 of them women, stepped into Fort Del Pilar for the first time on Sunday (June 1) during the annual reception rites of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).

The plebes will compose the premier military school’s Class of 2029, according to Navy Lt. Jesse Nestor Saludo, PMA chief of public affairs. They were among the 1,701 individuals across the country who passed the PMA entrance examinations. The incoming cadets passed subsequent physical and medical screenings.

Saludo said Class 2029 will be the first batch of cadets to undergo a new curriculum which integrates “territorial defense and modern warfare” subjects in order to secure a bachelor of science degree in management, majoring in security studies.

Vice Adm. Caesar Bernard Valencia, PMA superintendent, informed the cadets that Class 2029 is “entering the Academy in a rapidly changing world.”

“The level and type of competency as well as fortitude that will be inculcated in you are fine-tuned to the threats we are facing in the 21st century. Cyberattacks, cognitive warfare, asymmetric warfare, climate disasters, and a myriad of human insecurities—this is the landscape where you will have to operate as future military leaders,” he said during the reception ceremonies.

The new curriculum was announced during the May 17 graduation of PMA Siklab Laya Class of 2025.