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Academician
revolutionizes Nat’l Service Training Program
Taken
from Manila Bulletin Online,
March 3, 2002
There
is a reason why Dr. Vivian A. Gonzales does not look like
the typical college professor, and it is not just because
she comes to class in an Army uniform every Saturday.
Her
dynamism, aside from her stunning form in full battle dress
attire, is shaking the academe’s foundations. Dr. Gonzales
pioneered her Values Integration and Promotion (VIP) modules
as the program of instruction for the Civic Welfare Service
(CWS), congruent with the National Service Training Program
(NSTP). In 1999, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)
issued a memorandum to all higher education institutions to
adopt the VIP-CWS as the Expanded Reserve Officers’ Training
Corps’ (ROTC) CWS component.
The
VIP-CWS also took the limelight during the National Orientation
Conference on the implementation of the National Service Training
program held last October at Camp Aguinaldo.
Republic
Act 9163 decrees for the enactment of a National Service Training
Program (NSTP). Effective SY 2002-2003, “students, male
and female, of any baccalaureate degree course or at least
two-year technical-vocational courses in public and private
educational institutions shall be required to complete one
of the NSTP components as requisite for graduation.”
The NSTP consists of the following service components: the
Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), the Literacy
Training Service (LTS), and Civil Welfare Service (CWS).
Dr.
Gonzales piloted the VIP-CWS in 1996 at the UP Los Baños
campus, where she was dean of students. The first time the
program was tried out, 12 platoons were assigned to 12 different
barangays. The students planted trees, conducted various environmental
protection activities, held anti-drug campaigns, solid waste
management seminars, anti-dengue drives, medical missions,
sponsored sportsfests, and read to and donated books for children,
among other activities. Since then, the VIP-CWS has proven
to be an effective program that instills the right values
in students. Those who graduated from VIP-CWS were less likely
to be involved in fraternity rumbles, and learned to curb
their vices and violent tendencies. Even when the Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) was clouded with doubt,
the VIP-CWS yielded exemplary results not only in UPLB, but
in UP’s flagship campus, and the San Pablo Colleges in
Laguna.
“VIP-CWS
calls for students’ transformation. My philosophy is
that before you can claim to help other people improve the
quality of their lives, as the CWS program aims to do, we
must begin with ourselves. How can you convince others’
of their human dignity if you are unable to see it in yourself?
Fortunately, we were able to make it work, regardless of the
setting,” Dr. Gonzales asserts.
For
the first semester, students attend lectures on Values Education,
Transformational leadership, development management, and social
mobilization. The goal of the lecture series is to help the
students learn how to become responsible, productive, and
conscientious members of society. During the second semester,
the students are allowed to put theory into practice, reaching
out and immersing themselves in communities to undertake varied
socially relevant projects.
“The
projects will depend on the specific needs of the communities
the students are assigned to. The VIP-CWS is responsive to
the ever changing needs of communities. It is not de kahon.
By closely coordinating with local officials, civic organizations,
youth leaders, and community residents themselves, the cadets
are challenged to identify and assist in solving the community’s
most pressing problems. It teaches them to be creative, to
become social entrepreneurs,” Dr. Gonzales says.
PROMOTING
PEACE
To
date, VIP-CWS cadets have facilitated around 356 projects,
which 25 barangays in three municipalities and one city in
Laguna have all benefited from. Because of this, Dr. Gonzales,
who holds a Ph.D in Philippine Studies and a masters in National
Security Administration, firmly believes that the VIP-CWS
is a potent machinery to help promote national peace and development.
Dr.
Gonzales is concerned with training trainors for the VIP-CWS,
since making the NSTP mandatory for both males and females
will drastically increase the need for trainors. Confident
that her program will bear fruit nonetheless, Dr. Gonzales
says: “Young people who enroll in VIP-CWS understand
the program’s underlying philosophy as they go through
life developing their virtues. Even without having to tell
them, they will eventually undertake socio-civic projects
on their own as they realize their purpose in life, their
mission.”
Sounding
more of a mother than a professor or military officer, Dr.
Gonzales never fails to remind her cadets: “If you cannot
be part of the solution, by all means don’t be part of
the problem. Believe that if you live your lives well, you
are already fulfilling part of your social responsibility
as citizens of our country.’’
From
the looks of things, her students seem to be more than listening.
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