Diosdado Macapagal and Typhoon ‘Odette’

JUST before the anticipated joyous year-end merriments of 2021 were celebrated, Typhoon “Rai” entered the Philippine area of responsibility on the night of December 14. The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) named it “Odette,” and while approaching the country, it unexpectedly, rapidly intensified into a Category 5 super typhoon upon its first landfall across Siargao.

Typhoon “Odette” was a powerful and catastrophic tropical cyclone that battered our country. It became the first Category 5-equivalent super typhoon to “develop in the month of December since Nock-ten in 2016, and the third Category 5 super typhoon recorded in the South China Sea, following ‘Pamela’ in 1954 and ‘Rammasun’ in 2014.”

Approximately 16 million Filipinos were in the severely affected areas, and more than 2 million were in need of assistance. Government agencies were prepared and quick to respond to all these; the Office of Civil Defense and the major service branches, together with the local government units and their leads, worked around the clock to address the most urgent needs.

What was uplifting, heartwarming and moving was the overpouring of care and support from private organizations, celebrities, nonprofit and nongovernment organizations, civil society, public corporations, foundations and even families; from civic clubs, universities and restaurants to small enterprises, individuals, village associations and alumni organizations, all shared what they could.

One alumni group worthy of commendation is the “Matatag Class.” They are the alumni of the first Executive Master in National Security Administration or E-MNSA, a program under the National Defense College of the Philippines of the Department of National Defense, launched through the Philippine Center of Excellence in Defense, Development and Security (PCEDS) in July 2020. The E-MNSA is a rigorous 39-unit master’s program on the theory and practice of national security. It combines online synchronous and asynchronous learning sessions and face-to-face classes at its campus inside Camp Aguinaldo. A policy research paper is a finishing requirement.

The program was headed by Dr. Gloria Jumamil-Mercado MNSA, the first female commodore in the Philippine Navy, and was conceptualized and developed with Deputy House Speaker and Antique Rep. Loren Legarda MNSA and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana. The NDCP is the government’s highest center for education, training and research on defense and national security.

The Matatag Class consists of high-ranking officials of the national government, private sector, local government units and NGOs. They reunited in December after their graduation last Aug. 5, 2021, with the aim of bringing assistance and adding to the whole of nation relief campaign intended for the families affected by Typhoon Odette. Members pooled their resources, donations and mobilization efforts together for operations in Bohol, Dinagat Islands, Surigao del Norte, Siargao, Palawan and Southern Leyte. To date, the class has raised and facilitated more than 100,000 liters of filtered water, 90,000 board feet of lumber, 8,000 square feet of shelter material, and 30,000 kilograms of rice, among others, remaining true to the esprit de corps inculcated by NDCP’s training on servant leadership.

The NDCP was first conceived in 1957 when the military advisers of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (Seato) proposed the setting-up of a War College in the Philippines. After years of policy study and formulation, Executive Order 44, authorizing the establishment of the National Defense College of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (NDCAFP) and putting the college under the administrative and operational guidance of the Armed Forces chief of staff, was signed on the Aug.12, 1963 by President Diosdado P. Macapagal.

Diosdado Pangan Macapagal Sr. was the ninth president of the Philippines, serving from 1961 to 1965. A native of Lubao, Pampanga, he earned his degrees from the University of the Philippines and the University of Santo Tomas. Among his notable achievements as president were the introduction of the first land reform law, the liberalization of foreign exchange and import controls, and the moving of the country’s observance of Independence Day from the colonially imposed date of July 4 to the actual declaration on June 12.

President Macapagal died of heart failure in 1997 at the age of 86, leaving the Filipino people with one great institution, the National Defense College of the Philippines.

The NDCP opened its first resident course (RC) in February of 1966. It welcomed its 57th regular class a few months ago, and in August of 2022, declared 42 fresh national security administrators as graduates of the first Executive Master in National Security Administration program. I am one of them.

The author has a degree in psychology from the University of the Philippines and completed two executive programs from Harvard University, first in 2005 at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the second in 2015 at the Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey. He has a master’s degree in national security administration and has the rank of commander in the Philippine Navy and the recipient of two Bronze Cross Medals.