ROTC cheapest source of reserve force

The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and a citizen army were subjects of retired general Ramon Farolan’s June 24, 2013, column (“Losing gracefully,” Opinion). He said the readers all favor the revival of the ROTC program as a source of leaders for the Armed Forces of the Philippines. He also cited the benefits of a friendly competition between the Philippine Military Academy graduates and the graduates from the ROTC which used to be embedded as a mandatory course in the civilian educational system.

I am a product of the ROTC program; I finished the ROTC Advanced Course at UP, Iloilo, as corps commander. I became an adjutant general of the AFP and the first deputy chief of staff for reservists and retirees affairs (J10) of the AFP during the time Gen. Fidel V. Ramos was the defense secretary and Gen. Renato de Villa was chief of staff of the AFP.

The ROTC program is our only source of ready reservists in the AFP.  At the time I was J10 we had an inventory of our reservists in the first, second and third reserves, and they numbered almost a million. Today, we cannot count that many.

The revival of the ROTC program in colleges and universities must start now. The two-year basic course should be made mandatory and a prerequisite for graduation—again. The additional, two-year advanced course is optimal.

The ROTC program has a lot of benefits. It instills discipline and leadership qualities, aside from being the AFP’s cheapest source of reserve force, which can be used during a national emergency and in response to a calamity.

Hazing and corruption in the program are just a management problem.

We hope President Duterte considers this appeal for the restoration of mandatory ROTC for the sake of our country.

—JOEL R. HINLO, retired brigadier general, AFP