SHOULDN’T the leadership of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), along with its alumni association, organize an intensive and objective assessment on how several of its graduates had turned wayward, and worst, criminals?
Brig. Gen Jesus Durante, who is now in military custody, is set to face court martial for the murder of a model-businesswoman who was reportedly his girlfriend. The former chief of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) reportedly assigned the hit job to seven of his men.
Former AFP comptroller Maj. General Carlos Garcia had amassed $313 million in ill-gotten wealth and had been convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
‘Ethics and integrity have fallen by the wayside as a new irresistible environment of materialism, ambition, power and wealth takes over.’
Former Maj. Gen Jovito Palparan was convicted of masterminding the kidnapping and torture of two missing female UP students and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The list goes on.
The PMA’s Honor Code is replete with the highest standards of honesty, integrity and morality but had been broken somehow after the graduates left the “hallowed” grounds of the academy. Ethics and integrity have fallen by the wayside as a new irresistible environment of materialism, ambition, power and wealth takes over.
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The breeding of high school kids in several private schools may have something to do with the growing menace of corruption and dishonesty.
The officers of an alumni association in a private Catholic school in Sta. Mesa Heights, Quezon City, are disgusted over how funds of the association have been raised and kept for personal use.
The alumni board of directors had meant to straighten out the financial records four years ago when it took over but was shocked to find just a few hundred pesos left in the association coffers. There was virtually no auditing and accounting of finances.
The priests who act as advisers of the association apparently looked the other way as the batch officers went about their merry ways.
If the youth leaders of this school, and other schools with a similar dilemma, are not restrained and disciplined by the school administration, there is little doubt they would follow the ways of corrupt and abusive officials in government and in the private sector.
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Pastor Apollo Tan, one of the truly zealous pastors of the Christ’s Commission Fellowship (CCF) in Nangka, Marikina, recently led the burial service for a CCF member, along with your columnist.
Two days later, he suddenly passed away. Pastor Apollo, who took good care of his health, did not manifest any signs of sickness or infirmity. The doctors could not determine what caused his death and his medical tests had come out negative just last November.
Unlike many others, he didn’t linger at the ICU struggling with unabated pain and pushing his family to the wall with huge hospitalization and medication costs.
When God took him, He made sure he would pass from this life to the next with little difficulty. The Bible says the death of the righteous and the Godly are usually not attended by suffering and trouble.
Our deep condolences to Pastor Apollo’s kind wife, Nenette, and their son, a stroke victim, as well as to the family and relatives of the Christian counsellor and Bible group leader, Nenita “Nitz” Tamayo.
Her life was characterized by her loving concern and joyful selflessness to so many whom she did not turn away. Her house in San Juan City was literally home to anyone who needed shelter and comfort or solace and prayers or counselling.
She refused to stop her Bible studies in her home even at the height of the pandemic. Her neighbors were aghast because many came without face masks. But miraculously, no one got stricken with COVID-19.
Nitz had pulled through quite remarkably from five serious illnesses but last week she went home to the Lord after suffering from a brief hemorrhage in her stomach.
Her daughter, Noreen, had begged God to extend her life once more. She recounts how she prayed really hard at the hospital emergency room while the doctors were trying to revive her 80-year-old mother.
When she closed her eyes sobbing in prayer, she beheld a vision in her mind that seemed as clear as day. She saw two angels standing beside her mother, leading her to the welcoming arms of Jesus Christ. Noreen was suddenly filled with a sense of joy and peace, knowing the immense rejoicing of her mother finding her way home with God and His glory.
