Monday, October 28, 2019

ROTC seen to equip future professionals with necessary skills

From the Philippine News Agency (Oct 28, 2019): ROTC seen to equip future professionals with necessary skills


ROTC SKILLS. Army Reserve Command chief Maj. Gen. Bernie S. Langub underscores the basic skills that future professionals can get in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) in his speech during the change of command for the 7th Regional Community Defense Group on Saturday (Oct. 26, 2019) at the 53rd Engineer Brigade activity center inside the Camp Lapu-Lapu, Cebu City. He expressed confidence that the government's efforts to make ROTC a premier training service to college students would surpass obstacles. (PNA photo by John Rey Saavedra)

Mandatory Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) will equip future professionals in the country with the basic skills necessary to perform their responsibilities in the community that they will serve.

Maj. Gen. Bernie S. Langub, commander of the Army Reserve Command (Arescom), said over the weekend that making ROTC a mandatory subject in senior high school would not necessarily make the students soldiers, but would help them acquire skills that are not found in other subjects.

“We will not make them soldiers. There are so many applicants who want to become soldiers. There is no reason to take promising ROTC cadets. Let them finish with their courses along with the ROTC and they will become good doctors, good lawyers because they can serve to the fullest of what they have,” Langub said in Cebuano during a change of command ceremony at the 53rd Engineer Brigade activity center.

The skills that future professionals could learn through ROTC will help them perform their jobs with ease, he said.

He took as case in point an upland village doctor who could easily select a good route in transferring a patient from one point to another and easily surpass obstacles through the skills he learned during his ROTC training in the school.

“Kun naay bukid, kabalo na mo mogunit sa pisi. Ug mao pud nay i-explain sa atong mga cadets. Dili mo himuong sundalo (If there is a mountain, you know how to use a rope. And that’s what we explain to our cadets. You will not be transformed into a soldier),” he pointed out.

The Arescom, he said, has made it a point to make today's ROTC no longer the same as the military training in the colleges and universities before, stressing the command’s efforts to address the issues on how the subject was handled by the past commands.

Langub also noted the need to transform the current service training in tertiary schools through the National Service Training Program (NSTP) under Republic Act 9163 that makes the three components -- ROTC, Civic Welfare Training Service, and Literacy Training Service -- equally lateral with one another.

He pointed out that teaching marches and drills in ROTC, making students pick up brooms in CWTS, and to allow LTS to be used by the New People’s Army in their teach-in to the farmers is a defective training for students in college.

The chief of the Arescom expressed confidence that the government's efforts in making ROTC a premier training service to college students would surpass obstacles.

Meanwhile, Langub said the Arescom command has also been exerting effort to level up training for the existing Army Reservists in the country.

Langub converted the Arescom headquarters in Tanza, Cavite as a ground for War-fighting Competency Training for both the regular soldiers and reservists. He equipped the Arescom Training School with war-fighting facilities like a water search and rescue pond and rappelling tower, among others.

Arescom supervises the Regional Community Defense Groups (RCDG) in all the regions in the country. The RCDG is supervising Community Defense Centers in the provinces. The country has 81 provinces that have existing Ready Reserve Battalion.

Langub visited Cebu to preside the change of command at the 7th Regional Community Defense Group of Arescom. Col. Jerry Borja was replaced by Col. Ricky Bunayog as its group commander while the former is now the chief of the Task Group Cebu, Bohol, and Siquijor.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1084398

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