Lt. Gen. Antonio G. Nafarrete

The making of a Philippine Army chief

- By MARTIN A. SADONGDONG

Lieutenant General Antonio G. Nafarrete, called “Toto” by his peers, never dreamed of becoming a soldier. Unlike many of his classmates at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) who had long envisioned themselves in uniform, his journey into the armed forces was more of an unexpected turn than a lifelong ambition.

Yet he discovered not just a career but a calling that would eventually shape his life, and now, the future of the Philippine Army (PA) as its new commanding general.

Born in Manila on Feb. 22, 1969 to a lawyer from Pangasinan and a teacher from Iloilo, Nafarrete spent his early childhood in the city before the family settled in Iloilo. “We were six siblings in the family, and I’m the youngest with twin sisters,” the 56-year-old Army official said in an exclusive interview with the Manila Bulletin at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City on Aug. 20.

His father, Atty. Perpetuo Nafarrete, passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, while his 90-year-old mother, Maria Daisy Gustilo, is a retired teacher at the Ramon Magsaysay High School in Manila and remains active as a board director of their family's rural bank in La Paz, Iloilo.

Though raised in a household that valued education, the young Antonio never saw himself in a soldier's boots. His real inclination was toward farming, a passion rooted in summers spent tending rice fields and sugarcane lands in Calinog, Iloilo.