Military bucks scrapping of ROTC

MANILA, Philippines - Abolishing the Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC) would compromise the Philippines’ external defense as this could deplete the country’s pool of reservists, the military said Friday.

Armed Forces public affairs chief Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala noted that ROTC cadets were among those who defended the country during World War II.

“The very spirit of the ROTC is to develop a reserve force that will defend our country from an external attack and that was proven in World War II,” Zagala said.

“The reserve force of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) comes from ROTC. The reserve force is the very backbone of our defense. If you remove or abolish that because of the misconduct of one, you are compromising the external defense of our country,” he added.

Zagala was asked to react to fresh calls to totally scrap the ROTC from the curriculum following a hazing incident at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP).

A female freshman student claimed that she was hit on the leg seven times with a wooden rifle by two ROTC officers for failing to attend a briefing night in January.

The incident prodded activists to call for the total removal of the military training from the college curriculum. Some PUP students even started a signature drive to express their opposition to the program, which is part of the National Service Training Program (NSTP).

Zagala maintained that hazing is not part of the ROTC policy.

“The intent of the ROTC is to develop officers, to form a reserve force whose intent is to defend our country and, during peace time, help in community development and disaster risk reduction,” he said.

“The intent of ROTC is good as it builds nationalism and leadership.”

Zagala said the incident in PUP was “an isolated incident that should not be condoned.”

Calls to remove the mandatory ROTC program mounted in 2001 after University of Santo Tomas student Mark Chua was killed for supposedly exposing irregularities in his unit.

The program was abolished in 2002 after then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed into law Republic Act 9163, which created the NSTP. The law made the ROTC just one of the three courses offered to college students.

Other NSTP components are the Civic Welfare Training Service, which requires students to join developmental programs and the Literacy Training Service., which allows students to become teachers of school children.