Youth and students against ROTC: Unity against an ever burdensome, corrupt and anomaly-ridden program
Student protests against the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) gained momentum under Macapagal-Arroyo's term and exploded in July. The students called for the abolition of the decadent, anomaly-ridden, ever burdensome and fascist program.
The ROTC is a four-semester or two-year weekly compulsory "military training" course for male college students. It is integrated into their course curricula and is a requisite for graduation.
It was in 1922 when the US first implemented ROTC as optional military training at the University of the Philippines. In 1939, through an executive order, Manuel L. Quezon transformed this to compulsory training for all males.
From its onset, ROTC was never meant to serve the Filipino people's interests. It was integrated into the very first law passed by the country's Commonwealth government, Commonwealth Act No. 1 (National Defense Act). This was drafted by the US to prepare for the threat of the Second World War. The US wanted to use the Filipino youth as cannon fodder in its impending inter-imperialist war.
Fascist machinery, corruption-ridden
Students and their parents have posted various complaints against ROTC.
Corruption is widespread within. It is used as a milking cow by many commandants and military officers. Uniforms and other ROTC equipment are often sold at prices higher that their true cost. There are also cases where snacks are forcibly sold to cadets during training.
There are officials who amass huge amounts in bribes from those who would like to skirt the course or from those unable to undergo training, such as the handicapped. There are cases where the handicapped are exempted only upon payment of up to thousands of pesos.
Parents of students who take the course are further weighed down by expenses for ROTC. In the face of ever spiralling school fees, the overpriced ROTC expenses are an added burden.
The persistence of ROTC militarizes schools. It generates fascist culture. On March 16 this year, ROTC officials abducted Mark Welson Chua, a 19-year-old student of the University of Sto. Tomas (UST). His body was found floating in the Pasig River. Chua, himself an ROTC official, had exposed its anomalies. His brutal murder shows the extent of fascism and the inroads made by syndicates within the ROTC.
Through the law, men who undergo compulsory military training under ROTC have been made extensions of the reactionary military's fascist machinery. The reactionary armed forces use this reserve corps to spy against progressive student organizations on campus.
In the face of widespread protests by ROTC cadets and their supporters, the AFP adamantly insists on retaining this corrupt and anomaly-ridden program. It contends that ROTC is needed allegedly to train the youth to defend the country. The course allegedly needs only to be reformed. In reality, the AFP has merely been looking for a rationale for its continuance.
The AFP has also been propagating an anticommunist smear campaign against student organizations vehemently against the ROTC. This worn-out tactic of the reactionary armed forces is being carried out to intimidate other students and their parents from joining protests. There have also been cases where cadets participating in mass actions were beaten up and harassed.
Concerted action
Students have declared that they would continue advancing the fight they have begun until the ROTC is abolished.
They have formalized their unity through an alliance, Abolish! (Network for the Abolition of ROTC) composed of Anakbayan, League of Filipino Students, Student Christian Movement of the Philippines, National Union of Students of the Philippines, College Editors Guild of the Philippines and student councils and publications. Abolish! launched on July 9 its campaign to gather one million signatures against the ROTC that they later presented to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during her State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the opening of Congress on July 23.
Cadets and their supporters staged successive walkouts, barricades and pickets in various areas of the country.
On July 1, about a thousand students in Metro Manila walked out of training and marched to Mendiola. Hundreds of UST cadets boycotted their training amid tight security. They burned a pair of ROTC uniforms to symbolize their protest.
On July 8, up to 400 cadets from the Ateneo de Manila staged a walkout. In UP College Baguio, 130 cadets walked out on July 14. The marched along Session Road and called on cadets from other schools in the city to join the protest.
On July 15, thousands of students in Metro Manila once more joined coordinated protest actions. Up to 7,000 students set up barricades at the University of the East-Caloocan, Adamson University, Arellano University and the Technological University of the Philippines. Five hundred cadets picketed at the Far Eastern University. In Tacloban City, 200 cadets walked out of training at the Leyte Institute of Technology along with students from UP-Tacloban and Leyte State University.
Up to 300 students walked out of UP Los Ba�os on July 21. On the eve of Macapagal-Arroyo's SONA, hundreds of students once more joined boycotts. Instead of merely leaving their training fields, they cleaned up the streets of Espa�a, Bonifacio Circle in Caloocan and Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City to demonstrate that there were things more relevant than ROTC. In Mindanao, students from the University of Mindanao, Ateneo de Davao University, University of Southeastern Philippines, Holy Cross of Davao College and San Pedro College joined walkouts.
The unity of students nationwide against the ever burdensome ROTC is a fine thing. The students must continue to struggle against ROTC to reduce state-imposed burdens on them and their parents. Alongside this struggle is the struggle against other burdens such as the incessant hikes in tuition and other fees that merely reflect the more prevalent hardships imposed by the decadent system coddled by every regime.
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