“Mandatory ROTC: Necessary or not?

The dreaded mandatory ROTC filled the youth with fear. A lot quite had a violent reaction of
this Senate bill as this was approved. The late Mark Welson Chua’s death is said to be linked
to NSTP. The problem here is that there will be more to than mandate this ROTC. On 7 th of
July 2022, Senate Bill Number 236, AN ACT REINSTATING THE MANDATORY RESERVE
OFFICERS TRAINING CORPS (ROTC) PROGRAM IN ALL UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE
OR DIPLOMA PROGRAMS IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE TERTIARY-LEVEL
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS was declared. Violent reactions were to be heard from the
youth.
There’s no doubt that we don’t have enough resources. Training centers, armors, and guns
are not enough for our armed forces. The population in the Philippines is quickly rising and
having this mandatory ROTC will cause a shortage of resources, not only for the armed
forces but for them also. Instead, we can utilize resources and focus it more on our armed
forces that are willing to put passion in what they do. In doing this we can have a better
armed forces in the Philippines that will protect and defend our country.
On the other sidje, two years of ROTC will cause of delay and miss out more opportunities.
There are more problems in the country that are needed to be taken care of instead of
mandating this ROTC. We can’t deny that yes this ROTC will do well in our future incidents,
however, going back to my point, not all people is willing and likes to take part in this.
Nowadays, we have been facing lack of resources in crops and vegetables. We all have our
own capabilities and each and every one can excel, such as we can also have youth in
cultivating our agriculture which is needed for our future resources, have people train for
medical services, and have some people to train in other departments. In this way, rather than
having the youth only in ROTC, it gives us more people to help us make the country better as
we have prepared for working in different departments, particularly in agriculture and
medical department. In doing this, may solve lack of medical staff in the future and lack of
resources like onions, and other vegetables that prices went high as stocks were low.
Unfortunately, there has been mishandlings in training our armed forces. A lot of fails in
attacks and defense. Let’s take for example the Manila Hostage Crisis. From there, we can
see a lot of holes that made the operation unsuccessful due to lack of better training and
preparedness. This is why I’m suggesting that instead of having new faces to prepare for
future incidents, we should focus more on our armed forces that studied and worked hard for
their position now. In doing this, we can get a better defense in our country.
Base on my statements stated above, we can see that there are more to have and gain than this
mandatory ROTC. To conclude, instead of having this mandatory ROTC only, we can also
have trainings in other departments that for sure will be used and needed in the future to run
the economy, this can not only take the burden out of the respective people that will be
assigned in training, but also to give time to focus on our armed forces and take the thorn out
of youth’s heavy heart on this ROTC. Adjusting the standards in studying and partaking in
armed forces, such as taking out height standard and others, we can have a set of new forces
that will be willing to serve and sacrifice life for this country. Doing what stated above is
better as we can’t deny that there are youth who can do so much better than undergoing in
ROTC. There are more problems to address in the country than focusing on this ROTC side.