Newly installed Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. is in favor of reviving the mandatory Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program to help instill discipline among the youth and spark a consciousness within their minds about the importance of defending the country “in case anything happens.”

*Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. (Photo: AFP)

* Brawner, who graduated Top 2 at the premier training school for cadet soldiers at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) in 1989, said the AFP has been taking steps to ensure that the malpractices observed during the previous implementation of the ROTC will no longer be repeated once the program is brought back. “Among the orders of the President [Ferdinand Marcos Jr.] to me is that we have to help prepare our citizens. We have to help our nation [to] really have that consciousness, that awareness that we have to defend our territory,” Brawner said in a radio interview with DZRH on Saturday, July 22. During his assumption into office on Friday, July 21, Brawner bared five “focus areas” that he will prioritize as the AFP Chief and this had an acronym “U.N.I.T.Y.” which was anchored on Marcos’ call for national unity under his administration. “The ‘Y’ part is pertaining to youth. We have to prepare the youth to be able to defend our country in case anything happens. This includes our preparation in case the new ROTC law is passed,” he explained. Last year, Senator Ronald dela Rosa, a former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, filed a bill that would revive the mandatory ROTC program for first year and second year students in tertiary education or college. The ROTC curriculum will be formulated by the Department of National Defense (DND) in coordination with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) based on general objectives and purposes, which include broadening the base of the military reservists that can be mobilized anytime to defend the country, training on disaster risk reduction management and response, leadership training, and education on patriotism and love of country. Such legislation has been considered as a priority bill of Marcos although it has yet to hurdle the Upper Chamber. “We, in the AFP, are already making our steps in order to prepare for that. We are training our trainors. The soldiers and officers who will be managing the ROTC program have to be professionals,” Brawner said. “We don’t want a repeat of past experiences in the previous implementation of the ROTC program where we saw malpractices such as hazing, financial whacking or grades for sale. It should no longer be allowed this time. We are making sure that our soldiers who will hanled the ROTC are competent and professional,” the AFP Chief added. The implementation of the mandatory ROTC program was stopped in 2001 after an ROTC cadet at the University of Santo Tomas (UST), Mark Chua, was killed when he exposed the alleged corruption in the school’s military reserve training program through an article on The Varsitarian, the UST’s university paper. Accordingly, there were some cadets who would pay school officers to avoid training but still get a passing grade. After the exposé, Chua went missing and his body was found floating at Pasig River on March 18, 2001. The incident led to the enactment of Republic Act 9163 or the National Service Training Program (NSTP) Act of 2001. Under the law, college students are allowed to choose from ROTC, Literacy Training Service, or Civil Welfare Training Service (CWTS) for their NSTP which shall be a pre-requisite for graduation, and be part of the curricula of all baccalaureate degree courses and of at least two-year vocational courses.