Improving ROTC — and the armed forces

The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), with all due respect to all graduates, will not raise the quality of the military.

The President said so. Columnist Oscar Franklin Tan said so.

Many of the young people are now complaining against the restoration of the ROTC program as compulsory. As a former ROTC cadet, I, too say that the ROTC program as currently conducted is a waste of time.

In lieu of the ROTC, I propose this program:

Conduct cadre training for a period of six weeks during summer vacation. This will be a prerequisite for college graduation. This program shall be taken by college students (male and female) while they are in school.

The training shall be held in seven military divisions: two in Mindanao, two in the Visayas and three in Luzon.

Trainees shall be classified as Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines.

The trainers shall be the new graduates of the Philippine Military Academy.

They are the best, much better than enlisted personnel of the military services, which is the case at present.

After the training, the division commanders who shall be the officers in charge shall select those who can be enlisted and those who can be commissioned.

The others shall be placed in the roster of reservists. This program shall exercise the military on how to mobilize reservists.

Should this program be implemented, the quality of our Armed Forces will improve.

And if the government creates academies for the Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard where the best among our young can be trained for the officer corps of the armed services, surely the quality of the armed services will rise.

LT. GEN. ANTONIO E. SOTELO (Ret.),
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