M o v e C u r s o r H e r e T o S e l e c t B a c k g r o u n d C o l o r

Mervin B. Tiu PMA Class 1980

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Prior to his admission to the Philippine Military Academy on April Fool's day in 1976, Merv was an accounting student at the University of San Carlos in Cebu City. His principal interest was to study law after finishing the accounting course. As fate would have it, he took the entrance examinations for cadetship on a dare to himself that he could pass it.

He passed the written tests and the physical, neuro-psychiatric, and medical tests required for final admission to the premier military institution. Up to his graduation in 1980, it was a wonder to him that he was able to make it through the rigorous life in the Academy. He breezed easily through the humanities but was "rotting like the dickens" in the technical and engineering subjects. He did manage to be in the Dean's List by the time he was in his third year. He also had his share of Major A awards in athletics through sheer brute force being almost 6 feet in height.

After graduation he was assigned to the Army's 3rd Division, and served in the Lanao provinces as a platoon leader receiving his first baptism of fire in the first week of assignment with the Ranger Company of the 12th Infantry Battalion against Muslim rebels of the Moro National Liberation Front. He later became the Commanding Officer of the 2/3 Brigade Ranger Company and was engaged in numerous successful encounters with the enemy in Lanao and with the communist New People's Army in the three Davao provinces while conducting Ranger courses for the various units in Mindanao. He is a recepient of numerous awards, commendations and decorations including two Wounded Personnel Medals.

He now lives in Winter Park, Florida with his dear wife Myrna and lovely daughter Myra. Gardening in the backyard gives him pleasure and tinkering with the computer is a daily routine for him. He manages a personal portfolio of funds which he actively trades in the New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ, and the American Stock Exchange. Although he enjoys the freedom of not having a boss, he is now a POW (Prisoner of Wife). He also does some freelance consulting with NASA (NASA Kusina, NASA Labahan...)