Mandatory military training: Is it time? (First of three parts)

From the Business Mirror (May 23): Mandatory military training: Is it time?



INSIGNIAS of Philippine Army Divisions during the Philippine Commonwealth era, 1935 to 1942

First of three parts

Is the time ripe to restore mandatory military training for college students? This was one of the potential policy issues Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte raised last year, as he was mulling
over whether to run for the presidency in the 2016 elections.

 

He eventually put his hat in the ring and waged a colorful campaign. After the votes were tallied, his rivals to the presidency have conceded. All that’s left now is for his victory to be declared official.

 

With his presidency looming, will he follow through with his pronouncement that there is a need to revive mandatory military training for college students?

According to reports last year, Duterte believed that restoring mandatory military training
for college students under the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program will help the country develop a credible defense force, especially in relation to the maritime dispute between Beijing and Manila.

 

“While we expect the United States to come to our aid if attacked by a foreign force, the country must also be self-reliant,” Duterte was quoted as saying. “And to build up a credible self-defense force, the country must restore the ROTC that was once part of the college curriculum.”

 

“Our young men are presently too preoccupied with texting, Facebook and other social-media diversions that they don’t even know to handle a rifle like we used to during our time,” the mayor said.

 

He pointed out that military training can help prepare young Filipinos in case the country’s maritime row with China escalates.

 

Though Duterte did state he wanted the country to have a more credible defense force, he also pointed out his belief that there was still room for the Philippines to negotiate with the Chinese government.

 

“We have enough peace-and-order problems in Mindanao and we don’t need to add an external security threat by saber-rattling against China,” Duterte was quoted as saying in last year’s news reports.

 

Going back to roots

 

The presumptive president’s statement is an apparent acknowledgment of the reason the country used to require college students to undergo basic military training as a prerequisite to graduation.

 

The idea here is to form a citizen army, which the government can mobilize if needed in times of dire emergency. This emergency could either be the outbreak of war or a massive national disaster. In both instances, the point here is to protect Filipinos.

 

This is clearly stated under Article 2, Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution: “The prime duty of the government is to serve and protect the people. The government may call upon the people to defend the State and, in the fulfilment thereof, all citizens may be required under conditions provided by law, to render personal military or civil service.”

 

This section was lifted and expanded from the 1935 Constitution’s Article 2, Section 2: “The defense of the State is a prime duty of government, and in the fulfillment of this duty all citizens may be required by law to render personal military or civil service.”

 

And to understand how this came to be, one must take a look at what transpired in 1930s.

 

The road to independence

 

Many of the survivors of the Philippine-American War were still alive in the 1930s. Some of them were able to hold on to a position of leadership under the Philippine Commonwealth established under American rule.

 

In February 1930 an Independence Congress was held. Among the committees in  that informal congress was a National Defense and Communications Section.

 

According to the book The Philippine Army 1935 to 1942 by Ricardo Trota Jose, Gen. Jose Alejandrino, a veteran of Revolutionary Army, favored compulsory military training in schools for Filipinos to form the basis of a citizen army that can be mobilized in times of need.

 

Unfortunately, this recommendation was not adopted because there was a prevailing American fear that any attempt to institute such moves could form the basis for a new army that could be used to overthrow US rule.

 

This sentiment eventually changed when the US government agreed to grant the Philippines independence. Thus, the Philippine Commonwealth was formed and with it, the need to form a nucleus for the soon to be independent Philippine military.

 

That was the idea. And to turn the idea to reality, the Commonwealth’s first official move was to pass the National Defense Act, otherwise known as Commonwealth Act 1.

 

The National Defense Act

 

The National Defense Act formalized a social contract of sorts between the citizen and the government. Under the 1935 Constitution, the government was obligated to defend and protect the State in which the citizen lived. And, in order to fulfil that obligation, the citizen must be involved.

 

This can be clearly seen in Section 2 of the National Defense Act, which states in part: “The preservation of the State is the obligation of every citizen. The security of the Philippines and the freedom, independence and perpetual neutrality of the Philippine Republic shall be guaranteed by the employment of all citizens, without distinction of age or sex, and all resources.”

 

Article II, Section 3 of the National Defense Act is even more specific. It states that “military service shall be obligatory for all citizens of the Philippines.”

 

And since military service is obligatory service, citizens had to undergo preparatory military training in case of mobilization. Essentially, what will be mobilized is a citizen army.

 

The citizen army is the reserve force that will shore up the ranks of the peacetime regular force, which will form the cadre for the expansion. The Act authorizes the president to call for either a full or partial mobilization to meet certain emergencies. However, such a call to mobilize the citizen army is subject to the approval of the National Assembly. The president may be the commander in chief, but the Act was designed to allow the representatives of the citizen army to check whether the call to mobilize was legitimate.

 

The law also provided for the creation of the Philippine Military Academy, an institution that will provide the officers for the small regular force. The rest of the officers needed for the expansion of the regular force during mobilization will come from trained reserve officers.

 

Preparatory training

 

Since the original concept for the country’s defense was based on citizen army that can be mobilized, there was need to for citizens to undergo formal military training.

 

And that was not gained by enlisting in the military.

 

Instead, Article VII of the National Defense Act provides for preparatory military training for all citizens outside the regular military establishment.

 

Article VII, Section 81 of the National Defense Act states:  “Preparatory military training shall begin with the youth in elementary grade school at the age of ten years and shall extend through the remainder of his schooling into college or the university as set forth hereinbefore. In case the youth ceases to attend school, or for any reason shall have no schooling, he shall become liable for service in the Junior Reserve on reaching the age of eighteen years.”

 

Children, as young as 10 years-old, underwent preparatory military training, while they were in school.

 

Parents who did not want their children to undergo such training were penalized.

 

Section 88 of the Act states: “Parents and employers shall be required to compel attendance at preparatory military training. Upon conviction of deliberate failure to discharge this obligation, the responsible parent or employer, or both, shall be subject to a fine of not to exceed P100.”

 

That fine is equivalent to the ten months’ worth of base pay of an enlisted man in 1935.

 

This was all designed to prepare the ordinary citizens to become soldiers if necessary. However, whether trained , these citizens will only be a mob of armed men and women without officers. Thus, the ROTC was established.

 

The rise of rotc

 

There was already training for officers even before Commonwealth Act 1 was established.

According to Jose, in his book The Philippine Army 1935 to 1942, the University of the Philippines and Ateneo de Manila University had offered military training for their students since 1912.

 

Unfortunately, the graduates of these military training courses had no reliable career to follow after graduation.

 

The same observation was made by the late Brig. Gen. Benjamin Vallejo (UP ROTC 1952).  Vallejo wrote in his essay “The ROTC Story”: “The training during this period has many limitations. Mostly wooden guns were used, there was no definite program of instruction and very little equipment was available for military training. The greatest difficulty was the fact that there was no promise of a military career for those who underwent this training due to the absence of an organized reserve corps.”

 

In 1922 a former US Army chief of staff became governor general of the Philippines after his retirement. He was Leonard Wood.

 

His arrival in the Philippines as governor general was the extra push needed to formally establish the ROTC program in the country.

 

“In November 1921 UP President Guy Porter Benton recommended to the Board of Regents the formal establishment of a systematic course in military science in the University,” Vallejo wrote.

“The Board of Regents favorably acted on this. On November 9, 1921, the Board of Regents requested the United States War Department, through the governor general, the services of a US Army professor of military science and tactics.”

 

Wood learned of the request and endorsed it.

 

“He, in turn, asked the United States War Department to detail a US Army officer as commandant and professor of military science and tactics,” Vallejo wrote. “The request was approved. On March 17, 1922, Captain Chester Arthur Davies, US Army, reported to the Board of Regents, which, in turn, authorized the establishment of the Department of Military Science and Tactics (DMST), and approved the plans and programs of instruction. In the same year, the Philippine Department, US Army, supplied the DMST with armaments and equipment. The UP DMST then became officially one of the curricular departments of the University of the Philippines. The course of instruction opened on July 3, 1922, and the term military drill was superceded by the term military science and tactics.”

 

“Several universities took advantage of his offer to make available US Army officers to supervise such training,” Jose wrote. “But the failure of the US Congress to enact relevant legislation resulted in the ROTC programs being mere showpieces.” There was still a view among certain Americans that these could be used as potential leaders of an army that would overthrow US rule.

 

Despite this drawback, the ROTC program persisted. Foremost among these units was the UP ROTC.

“By 1929, a Field Artillery unit was established in UP on October 26, 1929, with the issuance of 75 mm field guns,” Vallejo wrote. ROTC units were no longer just “showpieces.”

 

By March 30, 1936, graduates of the ROTC program found a home. They were inducted as reserve officers of the Philippine Commonwealth Army by President Manuel  L. Quezon.

 

When World War II came to the Philippines, the relevance of the establishing a field artillery unit in UP became apparent. Many of these field artillery men formed the backbone of the Philippine Coastal Artillery Units (PCAU) that manned the guns in Bataan and Corregidor.

 

So numerous were these UP field artillery reserve officers within the PCAU that decades later, the insignia they wore on their collars would sometimes be misidentified as the insignia of the PCAU. In reality, they wore the UP seal on their collars to signify that they were once an ROTC field artillery unit.

 

To be continued

 

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