Serving your country

Among generations that have never seen war, it can be difficult to comprehend the need to undergo even basic military training.

I hated my compulsory high school Citizens Army Training. When we bivouacked somewhere in Rizal, the public toilet provided anything but comfort, and I threw up from eating food straight out of the can without heating the contents. “What’s the point?” raced through my head as I clambered up a hillside cliff with hardly any incline using a hunting knife and my bare hands, and then slid down another path back to the ground, loose soil entering my grimy fatigue pants.

I wondered what would happen if any of us died there from a bad fall, or from food poisoning or malaria.

To get a person on board in any project, two questions must be answered: what’s it for, and what’s in it for me?

It can be complicated to answer these questions when you pitch the revival of mandatory ROTC, the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, to today’s typical Pinoy youth.

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Despite that joyless bivouac, the experience was memorable enough for me to have details of the site imprinted indelibly in my head. I recognized the site again, during a visit about two years ago to Montalban, Rizal, near the foot of a hill that Ayala Land is reportedly planning to develop.

With the passage of time, I can see the point of supporters of the proposal, mostly from the older generations, that ROTC can instill not only discipline among the youth but also a basic appreciation of patriotism, of service to a nation to which they belong.

Much will depend on the way the program is implemented, and how the revival is pitched to the youth. I believe our younger generations are not lacking in patriotism, even if their parents complain that love of country is alien to their kids.

Reviving the ROTC is part of a general refocusing of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The AFP attributes 80 percent of its human capability to reserve forces – nearly 110,000 on ready reserve status and another 50,000 on standby reserve.

These include graduates of compulsory ROTC up to age 65 (the retired reservists) and the ROTC volunteers. Also included are graduates of the National Defense College of the Philippines and several specialized training programs for professionals, such as doctors and nurses, who want to be part of the reserves.

Yes, there are still youths who volunteer for ROTC, according to Army spokesman Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala. But of course the AFP prefers to have more reservists.

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Beefing up the reserve force is part of the AFP’s transformation up to 2028. Last week Zagala told “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV-One News that the refocus is from non-conventional or internal threats (insurgency and terrorism) to conventional or external.

Is there any specific threat that the new focus is addressing? Zagala said the AFP is just making up for the neglect of its capability to deal with external threats.

The country was under the US security umbrella for nearly a century, with Uncle Sam taking care of the Philippines’ external defense. When our Senate voted to shut down the US bases, ignoring then president Cory Aquino’s marching in the rain to plead with the senators, the AFP was unprepared for the disappearance of the security umbrella. Uncle Sam left in a huff, taking everything that could be dismantled from the bases, and rejecting a request from the Cory Aquino administration to leave at least the floating dry dock at Subic Naval Base.

During that deep freeze in bilateral relations, I went on a fellowship in Washington, where I was shown that the once massive “Philippine desk” in the State Department had been reduced, literally, to a desk or two.

Shortly after the bitter parting between the treaty allies, the Chinese began building structures on Panganiban (Mischief) Reef off Palawan.

It took some years before the AFP began talking about the need to achieve minimum credible defense capability, largely on its own, with a little bit of help not just from the US but also from other allies such as Australia, Japan and South Korea.

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Today the Army is busy organizing its 1st Brigade Combat Team, which will be capable of rapid deployment of smaller, highly mobile units to respond to threats across the country. Zagala said the team would have double the number of personnel in a typical Army brigade, or about 1,800 soldiers.

Zagala faced The Chiefs wearing the new uniform featuring what he described as the “Philippine Army pattern.”

“We have changed not just our uniform but also our attitude,” he told us.

Despite the controversial human rights record of the current commander-in-chief, the AFP has come a long way from the days when it was seen as a martial law oppressor and later as a hotbed for coup plotting. So maybe it can attract more youths to sign up for reserve force training, like Filipino-Italian celebrity Matteo Guidicelli who recently volunteered for (and topped) the Army Scout Ranger course.

The grueling 30-day course “builds you up, it makes you a better person,” Zagala said. He noted that Matteo, when asked why he wanted to undergo the specialized training, replied, “I want to serve our country. I love our country.”

After the training, “it was a different Matteo” that emerged, Zagala said: “More determined. A team player. A soldier.”

He said younger generations of Pinoys could be averse to ROTC because they lack understanding of the program, or they see no need for it or, as older generations sigh, they have a weak sense of patriotism. Or there might be youths who want to volunteer but don’t know how to go about it.

It may take some effort to persuade opponents of the revival of compulsory ROTC that, as Zagala put it, “it’s better to be ready when the time comes.”

Security is like air; you miss it only when it disappears. In case this happens and the country faces a serious armed external threat, is the AFP ready? The Philippines has one of the weakest armed forces in this part of the planet.

“Our strength lies not in our equipment,” Zagala told us, “but in our people.”

Even if the country is outgunned, he stressed, “once you have the right attitude… kaya mo talunin (you can prevail).”

From the example of the Vietnamese, who drove away all foreign invaders, I believe him.

“Don’t be afraid of serving your country,” Zagala said.