DAVAO CITY (November 12) –There was a time when Jonathan Gawigawen Calixto dreamed of wearing a soldier’s uniform. The dream began at home, in Besao East, Mountain Province, where he grew up as the youngest of six children of Arthur and Dominga Calixto. His grandfather was a war veteran, while his father was also a soldier. For a young boy growing up surrounded by men who had devoted their lives to service, becoming a soldier seemed almost like a natural destiny. Service was not an abstract idea to Jonathan; he saw it in the lives of the men closest to him. He wanted to follow their footsteps.
But life would eventually take him to a different uniform. And in the end, it would still place a star on his shoulder.
Jonathan spent his secondary school years in Kin-iway, Mountain Province, where he honed his skills as an athlete. Sports taught him discipline, endurance, teamwork, and the determination to keep going even when the body was already tired. He later pursued a Bachelor of Science in Criminology at the University of Baguio. But after graduation, the road to his dream was not easy. Instead of immediately entering the police service, he worked as a security guard at Brent International School for more than a year.
During this period, his elder brother, Police Colonel Rimas Calixto (retired), a graduate of PNPA Class of 1984, became more than a brother. He became Jonathan’s mentor. Rimas encouraged his younger brother to take the Philippine National Police Academy exam. Jonathan passed, and with that, his dream took a different direction.
“The dream just changed as I saw my big brother as my mentor,” Jonathan recalled.
From dreaming of becoming a soldier, he found another way to serve the country. He entered the Philippine National Police Academy and became a member of Kabalikat Class of 1998. Among his classmates was another officer who would become one of the closest figures in his professional life, Police Brigadier General Hansel Matamis Marantan (ret.), also a member of Kabalikat ’98.
Jonathan’s entry into the police organization was far from a bed of roses. His career would take him into some of the country’s most difficult and dangerous security assignments. After graduating from the academy, he joined the elite Special Action Force, where he spent years in specialized operations, including an assignment with the Crisis Response Group. He was wounded in combat operations and received three wounded-in-action medals, as well as two meritorious awards that carried special promotions.
His career would eventually take him through a succession of demanding assignments. He served as chief of a Regional Mobile Force Battalion in the National Capital Region, intelligence officer at Camp Olivas in Pampanga, chief of staff at the Eastern Police District, provincial director of La Union, and chief of a Provincial Mobile Force Company in Region 1. He later served with the Anti-Kidnapping Group, where he became Deputy Director for Administration. In May 2026, he returned to the Special Action Force as its deputy director.
His career was largely shaped by specialized police operations, counterterrorism, anti-kidnapping missions, and other high-risk assignments. In 2013, while still with the SAF, he was assigned to Task Force Limbas of the Anti-Kidnapping Group as an intelligence officer, while his classmate Marantan was then with the Highway Patrol Group. Their careers, in many ways, followed parallel paths through some of the most challenging areas of police work.
In 2008, Jonathan was among the awardees of the Ten Most Outstanding Young Men for PNP service, recognition that reflected not only his operational accomplishments but also the promise he had already demonstrated as a young police officer. His career also included community-oriented work involving bloodletting activities, tree planting, clean-and-green programs, school-supply drives, and housing-related initiatives—reminders that, for him, policing was not only about combat and enforcement but also about service to communities.
In 2021, he was appointed director of the La Union Police Provincial Office, where he emphasized crime prevention and pre-empting organized crime while describing the province as generally peaceful.
Yet behind the medals, promotions, assignments and command positions was something less visible—a family that carried the weight of his profession with him.
Then came the moment he had worked for throughout his career: the star.
The announcement of Jonathan’s promotion to police brigadier general came on September 17, 2026. He was scheduled to don his new rank on October 1. For Jonathan, however, the ceremony was more than another milestone in his professional life. It brought together his career, his family, and the memory of the woman who had given him life.
His daughter, Kayla, pinned the star on his shoulder.
“I was the proudest father when the star fell on my shoulder,” he said, recalling the moment with emotion. His wife, Sonia, could not attend because she had a prior commitment.
But in that moment, Jonathan remembered someone who was no longer physically there—his mother.
The memory took him back to 2017, when he was celebrating his 45th birthday. His mother was then on her deathbed. Instead of celebrating, Jonathan was pleading with her to stay.
“Mama, please don’t die today because it is my birthday, so we must celebrate,” he remembered telling her.
His mother answered him with words he has never forgotten.
“My son, Kudyam, I will always love you.”
The following day, his mother died.
Years passed, but the memory remained.
Then came September 17, 2026—the announcement of his promotion to general. And when the date for his donning ceremony was set, Jonathan noticed something that struck him deeply.
October 1 was his mother’s birthday.
“My donning was held on my Mom’s birthday. It is all God’s plan,” he said.
For Jonathan, the star placed on his shoulder that day was therefore more than a symbol of rank. It reminded him of his mother, his family, the sacrifices made along the way, and the journey that had brought him from a small community in Besao to the highest levels of police service.
And immediately after the donning ceremony, he went home.
He returned to Besao, to the community where the young boy who once dreamed of becoming a soldier had grown up. This time, however, he returned wearing the stars of a police general.
His community welcomed him with a feast and celebrated his promotion. It was a homecoming filled with pride.
The boy who once dreamed of following his grandfather and father into the military had come home wearing a different uniform—but carrying the same spirit of service.
For Jonathan, the journey was never simply about rank. It was about family.
It was about the brother who became his mentor and showed him another path to serve. It was about a father and grandfather whose lives planted the seed of service in him. It was about a mother whose final words became a lifelong memory. It was about a wife and three children who lived with the sacrifices and uncertainties that come with having a husband and father in the police service.
His wife, Sonia, is also his PNPA classmate, and together they are blessed with three children.
For decades, his family lived with the reality of police life: the long absences, dangerous assignments, sudden deployments, and the quiet prayers that accompany every mission. While Jonathan went into places where danger was often part of the job, his family waited for him to come home.
That is why the star on his shoulder belongs, in many ways, not only to him. It belongs to the family that stood behind him.
Now that he has achieved the rank every police officer aspires to reach, what comes next for Jonathan Calixto?
His answer isn’t another title. It is about the next generation.
He wants to inspire young people who dream of joining the police service. He wants them to understand that a career in uniform is not simply about wearing a badge, carrying authority, or earning promotions. It is about sacrifice, discipline, hard work, and integrity.
And above all, it is about remembering the people who matter most.
“I will continue to inspire the underclass and the young aspiring police to love their work and work hard, love their family and protect their integrity,” he said.
Perhaps that is the greatest lesson from Jonathan Calixto’s journey.
The boy from Besao who once dreamed of becoming a soldier did not simply find a career. He found another way to fulfill the same calling he inherited from his grandfather and father: to serve.
He found a mentor in his elder brother. He survived dangerous assignments. He carried the pain of losing his mother. He built a family of his own. He served in some of the most demanding units of the Philippine National Police. And after decades of service, he finally received the star he had worked so hard to earn.
Then he went home.
Home to Besao.
Home to the people who knew him before the uniform, before the medals, before the stars.
He came home not as the soldier he once dreamed of becoming, but as a police general carrying the stars of the Philippine National Police on his shoulder.
And perhaps, in the quietest and most profound sense, he came home carrying something greater than rank:
the love of his family, the memory of his mother, the legacy of his grandfather and father, and the responsibility to inspire those who will follow after him.
For Jonathan Gawigawen Calixto, the journey from Besao to the stars was never a journey he made alone.
His family walked every step with him.-Editha Z Caduaya
