ROTC stands for ‘Reserved Officers’ Training Corps’ and is defined by the 12th Congress of the Republic of the Philippines as, “One of three components of the National Service Training Program, the civic education and defense preparedness program for Filipino college students”. The idea has long been established ever since the Philippine Commonwealth but progressed to different stages of implementation throughout the years.
It started off as a completely voluntary endeavor that was first known as ‘Military Science’ and first established in the University of the Philippines. Fast-forward to World War II, it became mandatory wherein college universities are required to conscript students to be deployed for war. Later, it came back to becoming completely voluntary, until the late President Ferdinand Marcos made it a Presidential decree No. 1706 to make it mandatory. Following these are a string of controversies telling of its supposed uselessness and how it endangers lives of teenagers due to the corruption surrounding it. This followed various efforts that intend to abolish the mandatory status of the ROTC thus the government answered it with the National Service and Training Program (NSTP) and allowed students to choose for themselves. From then on, ROTC has faced a decline of enrollees even with schools that implements it. On the other hand, there were also various efforts to once again make ROTC mandatory, the latest with the current President Rodrigo Duterte signing for the mandatory ROTC starting from High school.
One of the main goals of ROTC is development of civic consciousness and good citizenship among the youth. It wants national responsibility from the Filipino citizens. It provides citizens a way to give back to the country that ensures his/her safety and welfare. On top of that, it said that discipline would be inculcated to shape the people to be better law-abiding citizens and might also be able to erase common bad Filipino habits such as the infamous 'Filipino time' and many more.
On the other hand, let’s consider how the military life is not for everyone. Military service is no easy task and requires a great deal of willingness and passion to be able to withstand it.
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Just like how Glenn, L. and Castle, M. told in their essay, 'We need to stop thinking about the military as a rites of passage type experience for young people the world, and start treating is as the serious, life altering commitment that it is'.
Fortunately, at today’s time, serving the military is not the only way to show nationalism and patriotism.
According to Tucay, M. (2015) of Rappler, “Nationalism precisely mandates schools to inculcate, for the large part, a sense of volunteerism, for students to pursue worthy advocacies and even activism. What the framers of the Constitution envision is not only an army of young reservists, but a generation of youth ready to battle against society’s ills, including poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and to a higher level, foreign domination in our country’s economic affairs”.
There are various other courses that could illicit nationalism and patriotism and deserves the same manner of attention as military service and even before, was already demonstrated by our ancestors. Andres Bonifacio, Juan Luna, Gabriela Silang, or in short, our heroes who fought with machetes and balisong are not the only ones considered heroes but also includes Rizal and his Illustrados with their ink and pen.
Today’s time allows the youth to demonstrate nationalism in various of ways and it is the government’s duty to tap into every possible talent and skill of the Filipino youth and incorporate it around a nationalistic and patriotic cause.
References
- https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-mandatory-military-service.html
- https://www.lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2002/ra_9163_2002.html
- https://www.lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra1991/ra_7077_1991.html
- https://history-ph.blogspot.com/2017/02/rotc.html
- https://www.rappler.com/views/imho/141670-mandatory-rotc-how-about-no
- https://www.scholaradvisor.com/essay-examples-for-college/young-people-choose-military-service/
- https://www.scholaradvisor.com/essay-examples-for-college/military-service-mandatory/
- https://greengarageblog.org/13-chief-pros-and-cons-of-compulsory-military-service
- Zofia Leal. 'Patriotism is Dead? Senator blames it on lack of ROTC reservists'. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
- Manalo, Charlie V. (18 June 2013). 'Youth group bucks’ proposal to revive mandatory ROTC'. The Daily Tribune. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
- https://voxeu.org/article/impact-mandatory-military-conscription-crime-and-labour-market·
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