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the
Department of National Defense (DND) against the UST Department
of Military Science and Tactics. The DND gave due course to
the complaint and later relieved the entire brass of UST-DMST.
It was arguably the first time that a formal complaint had
been lodged against the handlers of the ROTC program in the
University Belt. It was also arguably the first time that
a school’s top DMST brass was relieved.
Even
before the euphoria of the victory of justice and fair play
subsided, Mark Welson Chua was kidnapped last March. His hands
were bound, his face was gagged with packaging tape, and his
body dumped in the Pasig River, where it was found days later.
To date, two dismissed members of the UST-DMST have been arrested
for the killing.
Without
pre-empting the result of the trial, we believe that the sordid
episode is just a symptom of the cancer gnawing at the ROTC
system. We believe that it is time to strike at the heart
of the matter. We believe the solution is nothing short of
surgery. Specifically, we ask that the ROTC program in colleges
and universities be abolished. It should not be made compulsory
and a requirement for graduation in college. An additional
reason for abolishing the ROTC is the fact that by requiring
Military Science for graduation, in the end, it is the Commandant
who determines who to graduate, a practice that encroaches
on the academic freedom of universities.
There
must be a way in which the constitutional end for the formation
of a strong civilian complement to national defense can be
realized without abetting a system that has exhibited not
only wear and tear but also squalid signs of corruption and
knavery. To be sure, changes in technology and defense philosophies
call for a reinvention of approaches to fulfill the constitutional
mandate, approaches which will be more responsive to the realities
not only of national defense, but of national development
goals and needs as well. The ROTC program, as presently structured,
has not – and cannot – achieve the objectives for which it
was established. To allow the ......
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