IS the mandatory offering of the Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC) now possible for college students under the new administration?
It is a matter of record that this military course had been a mandatory training course in all tertiary schools in the country since the early 50s up to the latter part of the 1990s. No male college student was allowed to graduate in a college degree not until he shall have also completed the ROTC Course.
In those specific years, the ROTC Course was then a Two-Year Course – One-year basic course for two semesters and another One-year basic course for Second Year.
Unlike these days, the same course can already be taken in only one year.
Instead of four semesters for every college student to graduate in the ROTC Course as a prerequisite for a college degree graduation, under the present set-up, the college student will ONLY spend two semesters in ROTC. And, he is already qualified to receive a college degree diploma,
More or less, the present college students are greatly favored by government.
If Short Cuts’ memory does not fail him, it was in the latter part of the 1990s when ROTC Course was no longer considered a mandatory subject before a college student can graduate a degree course in college.
The compulsory training in the military course was STOPPED!
The main reason?
The ROTC military training was embroiled in GRAFT AND CORRUPTION cases in those years!
And, the practice was not only the monopoly of schools and universities in Manila and Cebu cities. It easily cascaded into to the different tertiary schools throughout the country.
Our beloved province of Bohol was not an exception!
Cases were also identified in some ROTC units in our province as relayed by reliable informants, Short Cuts’ ROTC units in Tagbilaran and Jagna included.
In the case of the BIT-International College-Tagbilaran Campus, no less than the son of the ROTC Commandant of the school was allowed to graduate the ROTC Course without having attended even a single military Sunday formation, Short Cuts was told.
With the information on hand, Short Cuts had to call the attention of the Commandant. And a day after, the commandant disappeared from his office. And, never to be seen henceforth.
He resigned!
With the same commandant in the same school year, but in a different ROTC unit – at BIT International College-Jagna Campus – the Corps Commander of the unit was doing the dirty job. One of his closest friends was made to pass the course without attending even a single Sunday of military training.
And the course of action taken by Short Cuts in that particular case?
He dismissed the Corps Commander and dropped the favored cadet!
The incidents discussed above happened in almost all regions in the country in that particular year. As a consequence, the national government directed for the abolition of ROTC as a required subject for graduation the following year.
But now with the assumption of General Brawner as the new Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the plan for a required ROTC Course is hatched.
Will this plan have its reality under the new administration?
