A total of 127 individuals have started their military training on Friday, Jan. 28, to be the next set of Philippine Army (PA) troopers in Eastern Visayas.
Captain Ryan Layug, commander of the 8th Infantry Division (8ID), said 115 male and 12 female Army recruits passed all the prerequisites and qualifications during the screening examinations.
They will undergo five months of rigorous training at the 8ID headquarters at Camp Vicente Lucban in Maulong, Catbalogan City to test their limits and abilities. Only those who will pass all the drills will be incorporated in the roster of the new Army recruits of 8ID.
Layug said that 94 percent of the new recruits came from the provinces in Eastern Visayas (Region 8) while the remaining six percent came from other regions.
For this batch of trainees, 37.6 percent are college graduates, 34.4 percent attained at least college level, while the rest are graduates of vocational and senior high school.
"The 8ID continues to receive influx of applications from within Eastern Visayas especially from barangays where we have previously deployed community support Teams," he said.
"Actually napakarami po talaga ng mga nag-e-exam at gustong magsundalo. During board deliberation sa mga aplikante, when we asked bakit gusto nila magsundalo, ang sagot ng marami ay dahil maipagmamalaking trabaho ang pagsusundalo (Actually we have a lot of examinees who really want to be soldiers. When we asked them why they want to become soldiers during the board deliberation, many of them answered that being a soldier is a noble profession)," he added.
Layug backed this up by citing the results of the "Pahayag" survey conducted by PUBLiCUS Asia, Inc. in the third quarter of 2021 which showed that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) ranked as the "most trusted" government agency with an approval rating 66.73 percent.