Catholic schools buck ROTC revival

MANILA, Philippines – The Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) is opposing the plan of President Duterte to revive the mandatory Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program in college curriculum.

CEAP advocacy and information management officer Anthony Coloma said their organization believes that military training is no longer necessary for college students.

“To revive the mandatory ROTC may be counter-productive for the country, given current jurisprudence and the fact that not all women and men are meant to be reserve officers,” he said in a statement yesterday.

Coloma argued that optional ROTC as provided by the National Service Training Program (NSTP) is already sufficient in terms of preparing college students’ awareness for national defense purposes.

“The ROTC under the NSTP is intended to instill patriotism, moral virtues, respect for rights of civilians, and adherence to the Constitution among others,” he pointed out.

He explained that the switch to NSTP from ROTC has resulted in more productivity of college students.

“Other Filipinos are more fruitful and effective in the literacy training service or in civic service, which the NSTP affirms,” noted Coloma.

He suggested that the government should instead retain the NSTP rather than revert back to ROTC.

“An assessment of the NSTP would be sounder to effectuate the benefits of RA 9163 that are yet to be implemented,” the CEAP official explained.

Under the NSTP, college students have the option to take ROTC, Literacy Training Service or Civic Welfare Training Service, the group said.

CEAP is the national association of 1,252 Catholic schools in the country.

Last week, Duterte announced the plan to revive mandatory ROTC to instill discipline among the youth.

ROTC became optional in 2001 following the death of University of Santo Tomas student Mark Welson Chua after he exposed alleged irregularities in his school’s ROTC program.