MANILA, Philippines — Four out of 10 Filipinos believe that the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program should only be optional in the curriculum for senior high school students, according to a survey by the Social Weather Stations released Thursday.
The SWS poll showed 42% said that ROTC should be optional where students can also choose community service as an alternative.
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Breaking down the responses of 1,200 adults nationwide, the survey also showed that only 35% supported the inclusion of ROTC as a mandatory course for Grade 11 and 12 students.
Meanwhile, 22% said that ROTC should not be in the curriculum of senior high school students.
More respondents in Visayas (46%) than Luzon (32%) and Mindanao (34%) support making the ROTC program mandatory for senior high school students, according to the SWS survey, which was conducted late March with a sampling error margin of 2.8%.
A Senate measure aiming to bring back mandatory ROTC, which is currently pending second reading, proposes the addition of the course in college, not senior high, although President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. marked mandatory ROTC in senior high a priority measure in his first State of the Nation Address.
A different survey conducted by Pulse Asia in 2023, which was commissioned by one of the Senate bill’s co-author Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, found that a whopping 78% of respondents supported a compulsory military training program for college students.
The ROTC program was made optional in 2001 through the National Service Training Program Act following the brutal killing of UST student Mark Welson Chua, who exposed allegations of corruption within his ROTC unit and filed a complaint against his superiors.
Then-Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., who lobbied to make ROTC no longer required for students, said in 2001 that the program no longer made sense post-World War II due to the absence of any external threat to national defense and security.
Magsaysay also pointed out that a dismal 10% of 400,000 ROTC graduates went on to join the Armed Forces of the Philippines every year.