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| DANICA (not her real name) sits quietly on one of the stone benches and lays her cartolina and coloring materials on the table. She, together with 27 other orphans, were at Grove 55 at Fort Del Pilar to spend a day with cadets of the Philippine Military Academy in what was dubbed "Ate, Kuya Day!" a joint community outreach program for orphans. Danica, who has just turned 18, is from the Safe Harbor International Philippines in Navy Base. But before calling this her home, Danica was passed from one guardian to another, each time either getting a knife poked at her neck for playing late into the night or being harassed. As a young girl, she has known neither her biological mother nor her family, and has lived with strangers who themselves are broken families. She decided to flee Sagada, where she grew up with her foster family until she reached Baguio, where she would spend the next two years at The Haven, the Department of Social Welfare and Development's shelter for abused women. Through the "Ate, Kuya Day!" outreach program, Danica and the other orphans were treated to a day of fun and recreation with a tour of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), gift-giving, and a drawing activity with cadets facilitated by artist Jonz Mejia. The each kid was given a cartolina and a complete set of art materials and partnered with a cadet, who would help them with their artwork. According to Captain Dennis Solomon, public information officer of PMA, outreach programs like this are the academy's way of fulfilling the five goals of a PMA graduate: as combatants, partners in nation-building, military professionals, managers, and leaders of character. |