Igorota Power - More than twenty years ago, a young soldier from Mindanao met a rosy-cheeked girl from Buguias and fell in love. He was so smitten that he followed her back to her home. And so on March 5, 1996, Eda Glis Buansi Marapao was born to TSgt. Edgar Marapao and Helen Buansi in Buguias. With such a name, how can you not stand out?
Eda Glis turned out to be intelligent and tough, topping her elementary class in Lengaoan, Buguias, and then as a salutatorian at the Benguet State University - Secondary Laboratory School.
Her mother wanted her to be an engineer and she fared well, becoming a Dean's lister in her first year in Civil Engineering at Saint Louis University. But she also wanted to be a poet and a concert musician. She was even awarded as Best Poet both in English and the vernacular and Best in Literary Feature in high school.
But fate has other paths and hers is to follow the path of her father. She took the examinations for Philippine Military Academy in 2012 and passed, despite being one of the youngest. There were moments when I wanted to give up, she said of her first years in the academy. But she persisted, consoling herself in her poems and trips back to their cabbage plot in Buguias.
A day after her 21st birthday, she received the good news - she will graduate third among the PMA Salaknib Class of 2017. The youngest among her 166 mistahs, she will also receive the Secretary of National Defense Saber and is also one of the three cum laude recipients. Her younger sister Glyn Elinor is also a plebe in the PMA. Eda Glis said she will still write poems while in the Navy and maybe someday write about how her father fell in love with her mother.
Congrats!
Source: One People One Benguet
