Proposed Advanced Citizen Training Program

How do you feel about the proposed mandatory Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC) in selected public high schools nationwide?

News reports have it that the Department of National Defense (DND) and the Department of Education (DepEd) are ready to jointly implement a two-year pilot program for the proposed mandatory ROTC in selected public high schools nationwide this coming school year.

A ranking Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) official, appearing before the Senate Committee on Education, Arts and Culture, said the pilot program will be called the Advanced Citizen Training Program (ACTP) and will be implemented in 100 public senior high schools nationwide.

The military official said the outlines of the Defense and Education departments started working on the pilot program after President Rodrigo Duterte mentioned mandatory ROTC as one of his priorities in his first state of the nation address (SONA) in 2016.

The DepEd and DND agreed to come out with a pilot program to ensure readiness in the full implementation of the program should the law be enacted. A joint curriculum for the two years of the pilot implementation of the program in Grades 11-12 has already been formulated along with an estimated budget of P211 million, it was learned.

Likewise, the 100 public senior high schools that will be part of the pilot implementation have already been identified. All regions, except the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), would be represented in the pilot program.

Unlike previous ROTC courses, there will be no weekend training since it will become part of the education curriculum. The exception would be only during practical exercises in military camps.

ROTC cadets would initially use ordinary P.E. uniforms during ROTC training, with a plan to later issue AFP military uniforms.

The author is Teacher III at Calulut Integrated School