BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – Thirty-three years after entering the Philippine Military Academy with its first batch of female cadets, Leah Lorenzo Santiago has become the first woman PMA graduate to reach the rank of brigadier general.
Santiago formally donned her one-star rank on November 9 at Camp Aguinaldo, less than a month after becoming the PMA’s first female Commandant of Cadets and head of the Tactics Group on October 17.
The Academy rendered arrival honors for her at Fort Del Pilar the following day.
Her promotion puts another first beside a name already written several times into PMA history.
Santiago entered the Academy in 1993, the year PMA began admitting women under Republic Act 7192, or the Women in Development and Nation Building Act.
She graduated with the KalasagLahi Class of 1997, the first PMA class to include women. Santiago finished third overall and first academically, becoming the Academy’s first female summa cum laude graduate.
Commissioned into the Philippine Army, she went on to serve in infantry, field artillery, personnel management, and military education assignments.
Among her earlier posts were platoon leader, executive officer, and company commander of the 30th Infantry Battalion. She later returned to the PMA as a senior tactical officer, commanded the 9th Field Artillery Battery in Sulu, and held senior personnel positions in the Army.
