RECENT developments, particularly that “peep show” in the South China Sea / West Philippine Sea, highlights the relevance of a mandatory Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC).
Currently, ROTC is not mandatory, it’s an optional course in university but with those noisy “useful idiots”, social climbers and self-proclaimed activists shouting every day, “defend West Philippine Sea” or “go to war with China”, the need for a strong-armed forces/reserve corps suddenly seems relevant.
If, indeed, war happens, we cannot expect those noisy lot to take up arms and “defend the West Philippine Sea” as they’re all basically cowards who can’t even defend themselves.
Conscription is “compulsory enlistment for state service, typically into the armed forces”.
ROTC is an abbreviation for “Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a training programme for university students, graduates of which become commissioned officers in one of the armed forces”.
While most of us are quite familiar with ROTC, particularly the male population as we have gone through it in university, conscription is not so common a term in these islands.
The unpleasant experience most of us had in university called ROTC is just that, an unpleasant memory that we all thought our sons will no longer go through in university as it is no longer a compulsory requirement for graduation. In 2001 then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed into law Republic Act 9163 or the NSTP Act of 2001 which effectively removed ROTC as a mandatory requirement for graduation.
ROTC has become irrelevant at that time and a major source of corruption and abuse resulting into deaths of several students taking ROTC.
It seems that with the current situation, all the unpleasantness and bad taste associated with ROTC is poised to make a major comeback and torment the ultra-sensitive Frappuccino-infused wokes.
Vice President Sara Duterte stated that she wants mandatory ROTC training under priority legislation. Senators Francis Tolentino and Robin Padilla announced support for a bill by Senator Ronald Dela Rosa that would introduce mandatory ROTC for students in grades 11 and 12, with a voluntary advanced ROTC program available for the first two years of higher education.
President Bongbong Marcos stated in his first State of the Nation address that reinstituting the ROTC as a mandatory component of senior high school programs in all public and private tertiary-level educational institutions is one of his priority bills.
The House of Representatives approved on third and final reading a measure which made ROTC mandatory for senior high school students.
In a 167-4-0 voting, congressmen approved House Bill 8961, which mandates the institutionalization, development, training, organization and administration of basic ROTC for Grades 11 and 12 in both private and public schools.
The approved measure requires students to undergo basic ROTC program as a prerequisite for graduation.
Lovely, but I am very apprehensive about the plan to revive ROTC, that program is very much open to abuse and corruption. We are all aware that in any kind of requirement here in these islands i.e. diplomas, driver’s license, barangay clearance, some enterprising individual in charge will see it as a way to make personal profit.
In terms of teaching the ROTC cadets the “art of warfare”, I don’t think so. For two years ROTC is basically marching up and down the field doing squats and push ups.
Above all, the most prevalent attitude towards ROTC is that nobody takes it seriously, it’s just something you have to grin and bear to be able to graduate with minimal if not zero sense of nationalism.
If we want to go to war with China to defend the “West Philippine Sea”, a well-trained citizen’s army is needed and not noisy rhetoric.
A conscription program following the successful model of Israel, South Korea and Singapore produces a well-trained citizen’s army of qualified Filipino men and women to defend the republic, not ROTC.
And the icing on the cake is that conscription is the perfect deterrent to the grooming and recruitment of “useful idiots” as cannon fodder for the CPP/NPA/NDF.
Of course, despite all these, in any international misunderstanding, diplomacy is still the preferred and best option./PN
