Little Nardong Putik joins the Australian Army

MELBOURNE—IN 1993 Engineer Nolasco Catibog of Lemery, Batangas retired as Director for Region 4 of the Department of Public Works and Highways, a job and position that had tested his mettle as a public servant.

Little did he know that the end of over 25 years of government service would only usher in the beginning of his toughest job ever: babysitting his grandchildren who migrated to Australia, among them a loveable toddler with an apparently unlimited supply of energy and mischief.

On Dec. 21, 1989, Catibog’s Caviteño son-in-law Placido Belardo had named the boy Paulo Angelo, but the old man quickly realized that this grandson was far from angelic. The boy’s Dennis the Menace antics and propensity for nocturnal games made grandpa feel that his dreams of a blissful retirement had been unceremoniously snatched by a seeming three-year-old reincarnation of Cavite’s most notorious outlaw, for which grandpa fondly nicknamed him “Little Nardong Putik.”

Ancient discipline

But his grandpa’s nurturing love and care during Paulo’s vital formative years paid off. The boy surprised his childhood “victims” by growing into a soft-spoken and mild mannered young man any parent would be proud of. Despite the techno-hip hop culture of his generation, Paulo exhibited a strong sense of duty and chivalry. Health conscious and non-smoking, he embraced the discipline and philosophy of Kendo, the Japanese ancient art of bamboo sword fighting.

A graduate of the St. Paul’s Secondary College poised to undertake a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice Studies at the Australian Institute of Public Safety, he opted to take a detour and follow a boyhood itch.

On March 15, 2008, he proudly marched from the Australian Army Recruit Training Centre at Sir Thomas Blamey Barracks, Kapooka, New South Wales as the only Filipino in the latest batch of men and women to answer a soldier’s calling in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps tradition.

The recruits came from all walks of life – carpentry, law enforcement, accountancy, business, and education – to be trained and transformed to well-bonded and efficient fighting platoons by Australian veterans of past military conflicts and recent theaters of action, some of whom had worked intensively with the legendary Gurkhas and the elite, much envied Special Air Services Regiment.

The Australian Army has a program of part time military service that allows soldiers to pursue other professions or vocations until national or international circumstances require their deployment. Paulo intends to serve and continue training with the Australian Commando Regiment but has meanwhile applied with the police service of his home state of Victoria.

The choice of a career in law enforcement proves the adage that the apple does not fall far from the tree. His father, Placido Belardo is a former agent of the National Bureau of Investigation, trained in Virginia and Maryland under the Anti-terrorism Program of the U.S. Bureau of Diplomatic Security. He now works as a human rights lawyer in Victoria.

The Victoria Police has only a few serving members of Filipino ancestry. If successful, Paulo’s application would provide an additional Filipino face to its predominately Anglo-European make-up and boost the profile of the Global Pinoy Down Under.

Hanging prominently in Paulo’s bedroom, a framed copy of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “IF” bespeaks the ideals of a former “little Nardong Putik”:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!