CHED vows to strengthen ROTC program

From the Philippine News Agency (Dec 8): CHED vows to strengthen ROTC program

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is determined to pursue the call of President Rodrigo Duterte to strengthen the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) to make it useful in instilling nationalism, patriotism and discipline among the Filipino youth.

CHED Executive Director and Spokesperson Julito Vitriolo said some of the directives they are looking at is to make ROTC program mandatory for male and female college students.

"Some of the directives is strengthen the ROTC program in order to make it mandatory and order for the program to instill nationalism, patriotism and discipline among our youth," Vitriolo said in a press briefing in Malacanang.

Vitriolo said the Department of National Defense (DND) is now seeking the help of Congress to pass a law that will make ROTC mandatory again.

In 1939, former President Manuel Luis Quezon issued Executive Order No. 207 to make ROTC obligatory at all colleges and universities.

However, a controversy involving the death of University of Santo Tomas (UST) student who exposed an alleged corruption with the school’s ROTC has prompted Congress to promulgate Republic Act 9163 or “National Service Training Program (NSTP) Act of 2001.

Under the law, ROTC is just one three components of the NSTP, making it no longer a pre-requisite for graduation in all public and private educational institutions in the country.

"We are following two tracks here, the one track is the passage of a law that will make it mandatory. Now, in the academic side, CHED is leading also the efforts in enhancing it so that the ROTC program package with other courses will now give you an additional competencies in terms of having an additional or dual degree or associate degree," Vitriolo explained.

"And possibly it will become a stepping stone towards a full Bachelor’s Degree in the future that will answer also the need of our Armed Forces for qualified officers," he added.

In his first state of the nation address (SONA) last July 25, President Duterte called for the strengthening of the ROTC program “to instill love of country and good citizenship.”

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=946836