Rodolfo Biazon: Soldier, Solon, Statesman

Rodolfo Biazon is erroneously regarded as the goat of his class at the Philippine Military Academy, the last cadet in the order of merit, and the bottom-dweller of his batch. But his rise from poverty to become a defender of democracy and a senator of the republic just might make him the PMA GOAT, or the PMA's greatest of all time.

In 1992, Rodolfo Biazon became the first alumnus to be elected senator. This eldest child of a baker and a laundrywoman achieved this feat one year after he reached the pinnacle of his outstanding military career—as the 21st chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. He had faced enormous odds to get to that point, starting from the grinding poverty of a childhood spent in Sangley Point's shadow during the World War II, when he turned into a man overnight after he lost his father a day after his eighth birthday.

A working student throughout his elementary and high school days in Pasay City, juggling odd jobs while also plugging away in his family's home-based laundry trade, he would finally find his life's purpose after he entered PMA as a cadet at age 21. It marked the beginning of three and a half decades of a stellar military service, fittingly followed by a distinguished legislative career that spanned almost a quarter century.

This book examines the incredible life and times of a soldier who stood tall as exemplar extraordinaire of PMA's bedrock principle of civilian supremacy over the military—the same solon and statesman who will leave behind an astonishing legacy as arguably the fiercest, most prolific, and most accomplished defender of Philippine democracy during the post-EDSA years and beyond.