ROTC Should NOT be Mandatory

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Program should be a choice for students. The curriculum in today’s education is already hard enough to reach; with researches, projects, and exams. Students already has a lot on their plate and adding the ROTC to this will just weigh them down, it would be very hard to balance.

A person, especially a student should have the right to choose whether they want to participate in the ROTC or not, just like the National Training Service Program that was signed by the former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that provides an option of joining the ROTC, the Civic Welfare Training Service, or the Literacy Training Service.

Yes, the ROTC may imply discipline and patriotism as stated by DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones, but it shouldn’t be by force, and this traits should be developed in a child’s home rather than a forced military service.

Rather than a mandatory service, the government should discuss the ROTC to students and encourage them to join, because through this way the students would know and want what they are signing up to rather than just joining because they need to pass the semester.

There are dangers that comes with the ROTC too, just like the murder of Mark Chua, a Santo Tomas student, who exposed the alleged anomalies in his unit.

Students should know deeply about what they are joining, they should be fully committed to the fact that they will be joining a military service and they should be able to accept the hardships that comes with it to minimize the risk.

Before signing a contract people study it first and not just sign it because someone said so, this mindset should be applied to the ROTC, and students should have a choice because they have the rights to do so. ROTC shouldn’t be mandatory.