Five hundred thirty-three newly minted soldiers have finally become part of the Philippine Army (PA) after completing a four-month-long Basic Military Training (BMT), it was announced Monday, Sept. 15.

The youngbloods were part of the Candidate Soldiers Course (CSC) “Masin-Talas” Class 797-2025 who were formally welcomed into the force by Brig. Gen. Enriqueto R. Deocades, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Intelligence Command, during a commencement exercise at Camp O'Donnell in Capas, Tarlac last Sept. 12.

“You carried not only your rifles and gear but also the weight of a promise to serve the Filipino people and to secure our motherland. Now, you stand here fulfilled, transformed, and ready to wear the uniform of a Filipino soldier with pride and honor,” Deocades told the new soldiers.

The CSC Masin-Talas Class 797-2025 began their military training last May 2. They comprised the first batch of this year’s quota of 2,257 candidate soldiers.

They are also part of the sixth batch of soldiers that completed the BMT under the One Training Factory Program (OTFP), a new PA program designed to standardize and streamline the training of candidate soldiers across its units.

Through the OTFP, the Army centralizes the process to ensure that all trainees undergo a uniform curriculum, standardized instruction, and consistent evaluation instead of different training schools conducting their own versions of the BMT.

The new program seeks to produce soldiers who meet the same professional and operational standards, shorten gaps in training quality across different units, improve efficiency in building up the military’s manpower, and enhance both combat readiness and non-combat competencies such as disaster response and community support operations.

The new soldiers will be deployed in various Army major units nationwide, the PA said.