Resolve that ROTC be offered to Senior High School (Negative)

Bingcang, Christian Arvin C.

The Reserve Officers Training Corps (Republic Act No. 9163, 2002) is a
program that was institutionalized by Articles 38 and 39 of the Republic Act
No. 7077 in order to motivate, organize, and mobilize college students to
engage in military training in preparation for the country's defense. The
purpose of the NSTP's ROTC program, which teaches service ethics,
nationalism, and patriotism, is to develop youth. Each component is designed
to promote engagement for young people in their nation.

ROTC began in the Philippines in 1912, when the Philippine Constabulary

began military training at the University of the Philippines, where the first
official ROTC unit was also created in July 1922. Republic Act 9163, also
known as the National Service Training Program Act of 2001, was signed into
law on January 23, 2002, allowing college students to choose between
ROTC, Literacy Training Service, and Civil Welfare Training Service as part of
their mandatory National Service Training Program.

It was made optional because of the death of University of Santo Tomas

cadet Mark Chua, who exposed corruption in the program and whose body
was later found floating in the Pasig River. Mark Chua and fellow cadet
Romulo Yumul exposed the university's ROTC program malfeasance in The
Varsitarian on February 21, 2001. The “Struggle Against the System” story
detailed Chua and Yumul's formal complaint against Maj. Demy Tejares, the
commandant of the UST ROTC unit, and other Department of Military Science
and Tactics personnel. After the report was published, Chua went missing,
and his father, Welson, received a call claiming that the UST student had
been kidnapped.

A Manila court found ROTC cadet Arnufo Aparri Jr. guilty of killing Chua in
2004. He was sentenced to death and compelled to pay a 50,000-peso
compensation to the family. When the death penalty was abolished in 2006,
Aparri's sentence was reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

According to The Varsitarian, another accused, Eduardo Tabrilla, pleaded

guilty to homicide in 2006, while the other two involved — Paul Tan and
Michael Manangbao — are still at large.

Considering all the events and facts mentioned, I argue that the ROTC should
not be made mandatory to Senior High School Students. The ROTC is not
necessary in upholding and learning discipline, leadership, teamwork,
nationalism.

ROTC may give a lot of benefits to students. People can learn a lot of
valuable lessons, like leadership, teamwork, social skills, discipline, military
skills. A lot of people can argue that they learned a lot of those “valuable”
lessons by participating in ROTC. However, those skills are not exclusively
taught in ROTC, there are a lot of programs and activities we can do and
implement in school to gain all those skills. We can participate in programs
 that are related to our courses and strands. Those activities are much more
beneficial to students because they are closely related to their chosen career
paths. One of their arguments on my ROTC should be implemented is
because they find that youth in this generation uphold little to no nationalistic
values. This problem is not caused by the lack of ROTC training, but because
they don’t feel proud of their country’s current state, they are not happy with
the people with the people in the government. They are not proud because
the government is not responding to our country’s need. Youths are very
aware of our country’s situation, we know the never ending cycle of corruption
in our country’s funds. They do not find the reason to fight for this country
where people are complaining of their needs but are making decisions that
help the country sink. The ROTC should not be implemented because
corruption will inevitably happen inside it. Past events have a high chance of
recurring. Especially in our country, where justice is very scarce, especially to
the poor. Most importantly, students will have additional stress that can affect
their academic performance. Instead of just focusing on academics, they have
to think about their ROTC training.

With all the discussion and proofs of the negative effect that the ROTC has on
students and families alike. ROTC should not be implemented in Senior High
School. ROTC has a lot of promising benefits, but those benefits can just be
obtained through other activities that we enjoy doing and are more in lie with
our chosen career paths. The government should offer other activities that will
not impact the students in their education. The government should put their
focus to other concerning academic issues. Youth of today’s era are more
open-minded to a lot of our country’s issue, hopefully older people can learn
from us, to not be blinded by false information.

Sources:
Viray, P. L. (2018, November 26). Why ROTC is no longer mandatory. Philstar.Com.
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/11/26/1871897/why-rotc-no-longer-
mandatory
Guest. (n.d.). Position Paper - ROTC Should not made mandatory.
PDFCOFFEE.COM. Retrieved September 16, 2022, from
https://pdfcoffee.com/position-paper-rotc-should-not-made-mandatory-pdf-
free.html
POSITION PAPER: ROTC MANDATORY. (2017, October 23). Outfit of the Day.
https://joyceann496.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/position-paper-rotc-
mandatory/
Benefits. (n.d.). ROTC. Retrieved September 16, 2022, from
https://www.bu.edu/rotc/army/prospective-cadets/benefits/
Opposition of ROTC in K-12 Curriculum  (Position Paper). (2017, March 11). Site
Title. https://robertbalinton143.wordpress.com/2017/03/11/opposition-of-rotc-
in-k-12-curriculum-position-paper/