End of era of armed struggle?

The House of Representatives approved on third and final reading last week the measure reviving the mandatory Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) in colleges or universities. Voting 276-4-1, House Bill (HB) No. 6687 seeks to restore the ROTC back to the curriculum for all students in higher educational institutions (HEIs).

HB 6687 breezed through the House legislative mills after President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) certified it as an urgent administration measure. HB 6687 is a consolidation of similar bills authored by several administration allies led by Speaker Martin Romualdez.

The NCSTP bill is one of the 19 priority bills in the common legislative agenda that PBBM enumerated during his first state of the nation address (SONA) at the 19th Congress last July. A chief advocate for the return of the ROTC in the school curriculum is Vice President Sara Duterte who is concurrently the Secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd). However, the HEIs are not under the jurisdiction of the DepEd Secretary but under the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

HB 6687 aims to institutionalize the vital role of the Filipino youth in nation-building that makes it mandatory for students in HEIs to take the two-year or four semesters of National Citizens Service Training Program (NCSTP) to boost the country’s Citizens’ Armed Forces (CAF). Furthermore, HB 6687 seeks to include or “enhance the capacity of its citizens to mobilize and perform their constitutional duty to render personal military or civil service to the country in times of calamities and disasters, national or local emergencies, rebellion, invasion or war.”

Thus, the NCSTP restores the ROTC as compulsory in the curriculum to provide military training to students enrolled in undergraduate degree programs in all public and private HEIs. Also proposed to be included are students enrolled in tech-voc education and training (TVET) programs, or courses of Technical Education and Skills Development authority (TESDA).

The military training under ROTC is for those who wish to become officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Or as provided for in HB 6687, all “citizen-cadets” shall be incorporated into the National Service Reserve Corps (NSRC) that will be created under the measure as well as the AFP Citizen Armed Forces after completing the NCSTP.

“It (NSRC) shall be civilian in nature and shall be a source for volunteers and conscripts in times of national or local necessity, calamities, emergencies, disasters, or armed conflict to perform non-combat and non-military duties and services as the President or the appropriate local sanggunian may deem necessary,” the measure continued.

The agencies tasked to implement the NCSTP are the CHED and TESDA, in consultation with the Department of National Defense (DND). The NSRC, on the other hand, will be under the control and supervision of the Office of Civil Defense – under the DND – the head of the agency of which serves as the executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC).

“The House has been working really hard – day in and day out – to pass many important pieces of legislation that we all believe will contribute immensely to nation-building. And the NCSTP bill is one of them,” Speaker Romualdez pointed out. HB 6687 was among the many legislative measures approved on second and third reading by the Lower House before both chambers adjourned last week for their Christmas break.

All these House bills approved on second and third reading will be transmitted to the Senate when the first regular sessions resume on Jan. 22 next year. As of this writing though, the counterpart bills separately filed by Senators Sherwin Gatchalian and Ronald dela Rosa are pending before the Senate committee on higher education chaired by Sen.Chiz Escudero.

Even as HB 6687 had already reached this stage of the legislative mills, a new proposal is being pushed to be included in the country’s educational system. In the last meeting of the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) at Malacanang Palace held earlier this month, the Office of the Adviser on Peace Process and Reconciliation (OPAPRU) has recommended “the mainstreaming of peace and development” subject in the curriculum.

OPAPRU Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. disclosed this during our Kapihan sa Manila Bay last Dec. 7 after the ATC meeting presided by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin. Galvez cited the proposed “mainstreaming of peace and development” into the school curriculum seeks to enlighten and educate the young Filipinos on the ways of peace instead of violence in addressing conflict situation.

A retired AFP chief of staff, Galvez underscored the need for the Filipino youths to appreciate and understand through education about the virtues of peace that the government pursues with all rebel groups from Muslim secessionists to communist insurgents.

This brings to mind the passing away of Jose Ma.Sison (Joma), erstwhile chieftain of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Included in the terrorist list of the United States (US) since 2002 that prevented him from travelling, the 83-year old CPP leader died last Saturday after two weeks of fighting for his life in a hospital bed in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Fighting against American imperialism in the Philippines has been the battle cry of the late CPP leader.

Following the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, the late President Corazon Aquino freed Sison from years of detention on rebellion charges. The CPP was outlawed during the martial law regime of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, namesake father of PBBM. Sison lived in Europe following the breakdown of peace talks of the CPP-NPA with the Aquino government.

Stricken with sickness, death quietly ended Sison’s leadership of the CPP.

Sison’s demise will hopefully end the era of violent armed struggle. That is if the next CPP leader accepts the peace agenda of the present Marcos generation.