By Steph Flores
Reading time: 3 mins.
This write-up was first published on The Bosun Facebook page on October 22, 2022.
“The aim is to motivate, train, organize, and mobilize the students for national defense preparedness, including disaster preparedness and capacity building for risk-related situations,” said President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., stating the purpose of ROTC in his first State of the Nation Address last July. Reinstating the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program, better known as the ROTC, in public and private senior high schools was among the priority legislative agendas he had proposed with his ally, Vice President Sara Duterte. Keeping the ROTC’s violent past in mind, is this what we really need today?
ROTC should not just be about military training
ROTC should not be just about following orders with the fear of getting punished and demeaned by cadet officers, nor should it be about marching in the heat of the sun, carrying mock rifles, or well-polished boots. Requiring students to do push-ups or squats is nothing but meaningless abuse because it instills an inappropriate form of discipline, where all suffer the consequence of one cadet’s mistake. This kind of learning and discipline fostered in ROTC is one that stems from compliance due to fear. No one learns from being shouted at or insulted by their superiors. When this happens, students will simply adhere to orders not because they know it is ethical and moral, but because that is what they are told to do so. Truly, ROTC downplays the influential culture of discipline and only inculcates fear in the minds of the young.
Power-tripping can easily lead to physical violence
How can we be ascertained the revival of the mandatory ROTC will not be of the same nature as the one that previous generations had to endure? Two decades ago, ROTC was abolished because there were many reports that it was being used for corruption and violence against students’ rights. Alliance of Concerned Teachers Representative France Castro said that mandatory ROTC would only expose children to corruption at an early age. This is the worst that could possibly happen.
The ROTC program has been criticized numerous times for its continuing violence against student cadets. In March 2001, the body of the 19-year-old Mark Chua, an engineering sophomore and cadet in UST, was found floating in the Pasig River soon after exposing the anomalies of the university’s corrupt ROTC practices. ROTC was scrapped a year after the incident. Chua’s death ignited a major turn of events. However, even after NSTP was signed into law replacing the ROTC program, the brutality surrounding ROTC has yet to end. Back in 2014, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) dismissed two cadet officers for allegations of hazing and corporal punishment.
It does not instill nationalism among the youth
It is worth noting that while the ROTC provides adequate military training and national defense preparedness, nothing good emanates from abuse disguised as discipline. There is no room for learning in an environment that uses authority to justify violence. Making ROTC mandatory again is not tantamount to instilling nationalism in the Filipino youth. In contrast, ROTC has led to countless cases of corruption and violations of students’ rights. The notion that ROTC is the answer to instilling nationalism among the youth only narrows down the meaningful purpose of “love of one’s country” as being able to defend the nation by surviving the heat of the sun or learning to take up arms.
Mandatory again? How about not yet?
“What we need is a better path for the socio-civic involvement of the youth, a path that is congruent to the challenges of the changing times.” That path, simply does not turn to ROTC. Key to this is to begin utilizing such programs to appreciate and understand the foundations for why citizens actually have to take up arms. It is crucial that the youth knows what they are doing, and most importantly, manifest this personal awareness that what they are doing is morally right. How can a program that has yet to clear its name and rid itself of abusive practices be posited as a solution?
If ROTC continues to serve as a vehicle to instill discipline and encourage patriotism among Filipinos without due appreciation and understanding of what it really means to be a trained citizen of this country, it is only right for the majority to vehemently oppose its reinstatement. When ROTC finally becomes a program that is grounded on moral values with an aim to cultivate an individual’s inner sense of discipline and patriotism, only then could it be reconsidered. For the time being, what the current legislation must aim to do is to refine the program. Above anything, the choice of disciplined and righteous cadet officers must be taken into consideration to ensure that they are well-equipped and trained to be in control.
Until it becomes a form of practical education that will truly equip the young to become citizens for the country and not only for themselves, lawmakers should not reinstate ROTC.#
Banner photo by Krisia.
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