There is currently a legislative bill proposing mandatory military training among Filipino university students.
Currently, the Reserve Officer Training Corps is only one of three mandatory national civic service options.
The NSTP was enacted in 2001 after the old ROTC program for college-level Filipino males was abolished due to corruption and incidents of physical abuse by its instructors. The case not only for its revival but attempt to make the ROTC monopolize national service requirements in the Philippines is rather weak.
During these stages, citizens are more open to learning and imbibing political attitudes and beliefs that they are likely to carry with them through adulthood. This is known as the impressionable years hypothesis. Based on its Gini coefficient, the Philippines is a highly unequal society and the population has historically harbored illiberal and non-democratic views such as preference for strongmen and distate for checks against balances against the executive. In a democratic context, it is not desirable to institutionalize a program with such a possible outcome among citizens.
Rather, as a form of citizen militarization, its institutionalization is likely to develop positive attitudes and beliefs about aggression, violence, and war. It will socialize citizens to war and war-like behaviors. Instead of compulsory ROTC, peace education programs are what they should implement.
NSTP as being more inclusive and far-reaching , while still having a military-training option, appears to remain as a better program. These will be lost if they succeed in enacting mandatory ROTC.
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