AFTER A brief respite, youth groups that have led campaigns for the abolition of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program are set to resume their "Sunday walkouts", the noisy protests they staged all of last semester.

This, even as both houses in Congress have passed their respective bills seeking to make optional the required two-year military training course, and creating a national service program in which students can choose from three courses, including military training.

During last week's (November 17) Kapihan sa Cypress forum at the Treehouse Restaurant in Quezon City, youth groups and party-list Bayan Muna Rep. Liza Maza shared recent developments in the so-called "ROTC issue" and discussed why students and youth alike should go back to the streets.

The youth groups belonging to Abolish!, the coalition that spearheaded the protests last semester, sounded the alarm that legislation pending for bicameral approval may not bring about the reforms the youth and students are demanding, considering the provisions of the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) prepared by the Department of National Defense (DND).

Dangerous IRR
"This IRR is very dangerous," Maza said. "After a review of the contents of the IRR, we found out that the three components will be coordinated and integrated by the DND."

A copy of the IRR furnished by the congresswoman to CyberDyaryo, indicate that the DND "shall have the responsibility for the overall direction, planning, and integration of the National Service Program (NSP)."

It has three components, military service (MS), civic welfare service (CWS), and law-enforcement service (LES). All graduates of the NSP will be integrated into a National Service Force.

"There may be a civic-welfare [program] coordinator, or a law-enforcement [program] coordinator, but the head of the three [programs] is the military science commandant," Maza added.

Still military-dominated
This just shows that "civic welfare program is just an auxiliary to the military objective" because the organizational setup of the NSP, as in the ROTC program, would still be "dominated by the military," the solon pointed out.

Echoing Maza, Cristina Palabay, president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines, said that since the DND remains the over-all coordinator of the programs, the authority is delegated to the school commandant, who also oversees the military service program.

"We are actually questioning the motives of DND Sec. Angelo Reyes regarding these machinations," she said.

The IRR also provides for the inclusion of out-of-school youth to be handled by the Department of Interior and Local Government and the social welfare departments of local government units that will conduct "orientation seminars on national service programs for all its prospective trainees/volunteers."

A common basic training module designed by the DND would be taught in all three components.

Maza opined that the agenda of the DND is to "further militarize school campuses and communities," saying, "This is the implication of the IRR."

Spying on progressive student orgs
Eleanor de Guzman, vice-chairperson of Anakbayan, said the military dominance in the program allows the continuation of so-called "student intelligence networks (SIN)" in schools used by the military through the ROTC to spy on progressive student organizations.

"In the law-enforcement program module, it has 'intelligence work' as one of the topics to be discussed," added Maza.

Palabay opined that this is one of the reasons why the DND is "insistent" on maintaining ROTC units in schools because of the information provided by these spy networks. She said that students and leaders from student councils, publications, and organizations are "being invited" to become part of SIN, and offered cash and other material gifts, in exchange for information.

However, Rey Asis, national president of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP), said that SIN have harassed and threatened those who expose ROTC corruption, particularly those in the campus publications. He added that these are done in a "very covert" manner and that "not even school administrations know."

Only a semblance of democratic space
"We may have all the semblance of democratic space, but when you go to the schools and tell a student, 'You are free to talk about the corruption in ROTC,' they won't tell you," Palabay said, pointing to the risks involved in reporting such irregularities.

The clamor for the abolition of ROTC was triggered by the murder in March of University of Sto. Tomas ROTC cadet and engineering student Mark Welson Chua, who exposed allegedly rampant corruption in the ROTC before he was killed.

Asis said that the youth groups would be staging demonstrations in the future, and begin anew calling for the "Sunday habit" of staging walkouts in schools.

--CyberDyaryo