Anush Kostanyan, Contributor

Leadership and Training professional

Let’s Make Peace, Not War

Now ask yourself, is this the place where you always wanted to live? Is this the place where each
child expects to grow up when they open their innocent eyes and see the world for the first time?
Are you able to look in the eyes of those children without the feeling of shame for this reality full
of evil, which they have to face? Is this what we have prepared for them throughout centuries
and years?

We cannot deny the simple truth that we were the ones who have been constantly shaping this
reality. But another simple truth is that it is not too late to change something. We can make this
world a better place if we try. So why not to create good instead of evil? Why not to make peace
instead of war? Why not to spread love and compassion instead of hate and arrogance?

No one is born with evil within. We are born, filled with love towards everyone and everything
around us. But instead of just following our hearts full of light, we keep feeding ourselves with
darkness over and over again. When did we stop to judge people by their personality and started
to consider the color of their skin? What urged us to acknowledge someone as an enemy just
because of the place they were born in? Isn’t Earth the only place all of us were born in? Are the
borders that someone has drawn on the map powerful enough to build in our souls the borders of
prejudice, alienating us from each other? Yes, they are! As long as we let them be. As long as we
teach our children to let them be powerful enough.

When the world and this life are nearly destroyed by the evil and hate we spread, we would
hardly care about the power we have towards others. We would hardly care about the God others
are praying for, as long as those prayers can give us a chance to survive. So why won’t we stop
caring about it right now, at this very moment? Why won’t we start making this world a better
place by creating peace and compassion? And finally, why won’t we earn the right to look at our
children’s eyes with the feeling of pride for the world we have built for them?
Think about these questions and, no doubt, you will find the answers. Because the answers to
those questions are buried deep inside each one of us. And we will discover those answers as
soon as we dispel the dust of evil and hate from our hearts...
Mandatory ROTC? How about no?
Marjohara Tucay
Published 5:58 PM, August 02, 2016

Updated 5:58 PM, August 02, 2016

Palace officials have begun deliberating the move to reinstate the mandatory nature of the
Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), with President Rodrigo Duterte's cabinet including the
topic in their fourth regular meeting on Monday, August 1.

This move follows Duterte’s pronouncement in his first State of the Nation Address that there is
a need to strengthen ROTC to “instill love of country and good citizenship.”

Moves to reinstate mandatory ROTC are not new. Since the passage of Republic Act 9163 in
2002, which made the ROTC program only one of the options under the National Service
Training Program (NSTP), militarymen-turned-legislators have continually pushed for the
reservist program to be brought back to its glory days.

Backers of the move to make ROTC mandatory again argue that it would help “teach discipline
and nationalism.” Others, like newly-elected Senator Win Gatchalian, turn to the escalating sea
dispute in the West Philippine Sea, saying that the revival of mandatory ROTC would “help
drive the point that although we are a small nation in economic and military terms, we will never
back down from our fight for sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea."

While these arguments may sound good at first, both do not necessarily hold water under closer
scrutiny.

The militarist argument

First, supporters of the mandatory ROTC link the issue to the West Philippine Sea, arguing that it
will ensure that the nation has enough military reservists if ever the dispute escalates to war.

However, such line of thinking implies that sooner or later, we have to face off with China, that
war is inevitable. It undermines current diplomacy measures being undertaken by the national
government to resolve the dispute.

More importantly, ramping up the ranks of military reservists through mandatory ROTC does not
necessarily translate to a stronger armed forces capable of defending Philippine territory if push
comes to shove.
The move does not answer the fact that we have a vastly dilapidated territorial defense system,
no thanks to the corruption-ridden AFP Modernization Program – which, to date, has spent
almost P100 billion for procuring mostly refurbished equipment.

In a way, the mandatory ROTC campaign may even be viewed as a smoke-and-mirrors move
meant to placate longstanding criticism on our territorial defense capabilities.

A violent past

Making ROTC mandatory again is also not tantamount to magically instilling nationalism in the
Filipino youth. In contrast, the program has in fact led to countless violations of students’ rights.

The ROTC program has long been criticized for being an avenue for continuing abuse and
violence against student cadets. In our education system, in fact, no other education program
holds the most violent record.

It should be remembered that RA 9163 or the NSTP Law was passed precisely due to the strong
backlash against the murder of University of Santo Tomas student Mark Welson Chua, who was
killed in January 2001 following his exposition of the corruption in the UST ROTC program.
Since the passage of the NSTP Law in 2002, the violence surrounding the ROTC has not
dissipated.

Back in 2014, students from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines reported acts of
violence through hazing and corporal punishment being committed by PUP student officials.
Two of the victims were female.

More recently, a viral video from the University of Mindanao-Tagum showed student cadets
being punched repeatedly in the chest and stomach. These acts of violence continue, despite the
reservist program being optional at present.

Instilling nationalism?

Finally, there is a need to address the notion that ROTC will be instrumental in instilling
nationalism. Such view limits the definition of nationalism as being able to defend the nation by
learning to wield a gun, a definition that is bereft of historical and social context.

When the 1986 Constitutional Commission was deliberating on Article XIV of the 1987
Constitution, Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said that there are at least three dominant
definitions for nationalism – the “barangay-Tagalog” nationalism which refers to regionalist
notions; the “tinikling” nationalism which reduces nationalism to mere symbolism; and a third,
more comprehensive type, which he discussed as follows.
“Filipino nationalism is the determination to uphold the sovereignty of the Filipino people, the
right of the Filipinos to freely decide the destiny of the nation — that is, the kind of government
we should have and who should run it; what is the common good and how to attain it; how our
society should be structured; how the wealth of our land and seas should be used, developed and
shared; and how our culture should be preserved and enhanced. Filipino nationalism is more
than patriotism. It is more than the love of land and people, loyalty to flag and country and
readiness to sacrifice personal interest for the common good. It is the firm resolve never to allow
our people to be dominated, controlled by foreign powers or domestic tyrants and to oppose
totalitarianism, imperialism, and hegemony with all the means at our command.”

That third type of nationalism, the kind of nationalism that the framers of the Constitution
envisioned when they wrote the Article XIV Section 3 (2) which mandates all educational
institutions to “inculcate patriotism and nationalism,” is precisely the type of nationalism that the
ROTC cannot teach.

For that type of nationalism precisely mandates schools to inculcate, for the large part, a sense of
volunteerism, for students to pursue worthy advocacies and even activism. What the framers of
the Constitution envision is not only an army of young reservists, but a generation of youth ready
to battle against society’s ills, including poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and to a higher level, foreign
domination in our country’s economic affairs.

What we need is a better path for the socio-civic involvement of the youth, a path that is
congruent to the challenges of the changing times.

That path simply does not lead to ROTC. For how can a program that the AFP once used to
install “student intelligence networks” meant to infiltrate and spy on student organizations and
advocacy groups lead to active socio-civic engagement of the youth? How can a program that
still cannot rid itself of its violent past post as a solution to apathy?

Clearly, mandatory ROTC is out of step with the changing times, and the changing needs of the
nation. – Rappler.com