ROTC Leadership

I, As one of the products of the Reserve Officers Training Corps, I am very well aware that a lot of people are against the bill implementing mandatory ROTC due to their personal negative opinions about it. Well, if we dive deeper into it and look at the reality of ROTC in order to clear out all misapprehensions, it is nothing like violence or preparing for war. Incorporating ROTC at a higher level of education does not imply that students are already regarded as soldiers or, rather, associated with the armed forces of the government. More clearly, ROTC is the epitome of nation-building and patriotism. In our society of this generation, many children are becoming rebellious against their parents merely because they think that their personal freedom and idealism are being violated; this prompts them into disobedience and eventually turns into one of the problems of our society, such as getting involved in dangerous or prohibited drugs. Fortunately, the ROTC has a very unique way of instilling discipline and building up individual and group characters with the principles of camaraderie and esprit d' corps (team spirit). We are also being trained to hone our leadership, management, and organizational skills, which our future officials will need most in order to effectively govern our local community and the nation as a whole. ROTC cadets are also involved in civic affairs and community service to help people in need through accessible services such as blood donations, relief goods, mountain operations search and rescue, water search and rescue, and helping nature by planting trees, participating in clean-up drives, and maintaining cleanliness. It is only through ROTC that we can attain all these because, right now, people, especially the youth, will never take action unless they are prepared and tasked to do so. The law of our land is very clear: implementing ROTC never stated in the first place that you were being forced to go to war. It is only preparing the youth with basic military discipline so that in the eventuality that another country invades our own and that our regular armed forces will no longer have the capacity and strength to fight back, we already have the reserved forces from the citizenry to reinforce our regular forces in the defense of our homeland.

I believe that only when the youth majority has the experience firsthand will they come to the realization that ROTC is not just about marching and falling in line. It consists of both military science (academics) and tactics, where a lot of young Filipinos can have great experiences in the field. I have seen a lot of applicants in any training institution who would easily give up merely because they could not stand the scorching heat of the sun, were easily tired from performing physical exercises, missed their old civilian life, and were homesick, which are the causes of being unfamiliar in a military environment.