Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte on Monday, Sept. 5, took the opportunity to discuss with the country’s security sector ways to move forward with the Marcos administration’s plan to bring back the mandatory Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program.
She, however, did not specify what was discussed with regard to the ROTC program.
“Yes, napag-usapan din po ang (we also talked about) ROTC and ideas were exchanged with regards to ROTC not just in basic ed(ucation) but in higher ed(ucation) and ano ‘yung (what are the) ways forward namin (of us) to give meat dun sa (in the) declaration ng ating Pangulo na ibalik ang (of our President to bring back) ROTC as a mandatory requirement for citizens,” she said when asked by the media about the matter.
Duterte held a lunch meeting with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and its major services—the Philippine Army, Philippine Air Force (PAF), and the Philippine Navy—at the Department of Education (DepEd) central office in Pasig City.
She also met with the chiefs and official representatives of the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), and the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG).
The mandatory ROTC and national training program is one of the 18 priority legislations mentioned by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. during his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July 25.
READ: Law must be passed first before mandatory ROTC could be implemented —DepEd
Several progressive groups, however, have raised their concerns against the planned mandatory ROTC program because it could be an “added burden” to parents.
Also, there are legal and constitutionality issues surrounding the program since it might violate the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a protocol to which the Philippines is a party of.
The protocol mandates that those under 18 years old should not be “compulsorily recruited into the armed forces.”