Group urges senators to think about youth’s future, block ROTC bill
MANILA, Philippines — A child rights group called on senators to do everything possible to block the passage of the bill that would require military training for senior high school students before the 17th Congress ends.
In a statement Thursday, Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concerns challenged lawmakers in the upper house to think of the legacy they would leave the youth as they decide on the fate of the proposed measure.
“We shall never let an institution with tainted integrity ruin Filipino children and young people’s future… They surely don’t want to be remembered by the Filipino youth as lawmakers who put young lives in peril,” Eule Rico Bonganay, Salinlahi secretary general, said.
He said the core of Reserve Officers’ Training Corps is “militarism,” “which develops vulnerable young minds submissive to authorities” and “discourages being critical which is a complete opposite of patriotism.”
Once the bill is passed, the senators can be held accountable even to international bodies, Bonganay said.
“Aside from being accountable, we do not have to introduce to senators the execrable record of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the multitude of human rights violations they have committed,” he said.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros pointed out Wednesday the proposed bill would violate the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the Philippines is a party to.
In ratifying the protocol, the Philippines declared the following:
- The minimum age for voluntary recruitment into the Armed Forces of the Philippines is 18 years, except for training purposes whose duration shall have the students/cadets/trainees attain the majority age at the completion date;
- There is no compulsory, forced or coerced recruitment into the Armed Forces of the Philippines; and,
- Recruitment is exclusively on a voluntary basis.
The House of Representatives approved House Bill 8961 with a vote of 167-4-0 on May 20. Its counterpart proposal, Senate Bill 2232, remains pending second reading.
The 17th Congress is scheduled to adjourn on June 7.
- Latest
- Trending
