On May 5, 2023, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) will be conducting their ROTC Games Orientation at the University of the Philippines Cebu. This will be attended by several high-profile figures including CHED Chairman and UP Board of Regents Chairperson Prospero De Vera, and Senator Francis Tolentino, one of the top promoters of the revival of Mandatory ROTC. State forces from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will be stationed outside the campus, while ROTC commandants, officials of the AFP, will take part in the orientation.

The CHED ROTC Games is a brand new program resulting from a joint agreement signed by the AFP, PSC, CHED, and Sen. Tolentino in December 2022 to promote self-discipline, teamwork, excellence, sports programs, and physical education. However, the AFP's announcement of the games carries with it an agenda to promote the ROTC program which is planned to be made mandatory through policy action. The ROTC Games are targeted to be conducted regionally by July and nationally either in August or September.

This petition is to stop the signing of the AFP-RCDG Memorandum of Understanding, an opposition to the forthcoming ROTC Games Orientation, by extension, the ROTC Games itself. This petition also highly expresses its grave opposition to the Mandatory ROTC Bill. 

MISALIGNED PRIORITIES

The Marcos Jr.-Duterte administration railroaded the Mandatory ROTC bill as its first education-related legislation amid a time of budget cuts for state universities and colleges (SUCs) and unabated yearly tuition and other school fees increases (TOSFI) in private educational institutions. This shows that the current regime does not have the students’ best interests at heart.

In the case of UP Cebu, the consistent budget cuts for SUCs have resulted in substandard facilities and spaces that even students cannot freely use. And yet, without proper and informed consent from students and teachers, the AFP has been able to secure UP Cebu, despite its limited space and facilities, as the venue for their activity. The AFP’s sudden intrusion into the UP Cebu campus and seizure of facilities with their day-long ROTC Games Orientation could disrupt actual productive educational activities.

When the games are to be conducted regionally and nationally, how much space will be intruded upon by the AFP? These games being forced on students reveal the Marcos Jr.-Duterte administration’s ulterior, sinister motive: the militarization of our academic spaces through the reimplementation of Mandatory ROTC.

THREAT TO SAFETY

Instead of addressing the declining welfare of students and other stakeholders, the state is opting to silence the voices dissenting against budget cuts and TOSFIs, among other glaring issues, voices fighting for the rights and welfare of all education stakeholders, and deceptively attempting to normalize military presence in schools through the Mandatory ROTC bill. It is not beyond the AFP to invade schools to stifle dissent as they have, in the past, infiltrated NSTP classes to red-tag students and organizations inside universities here in Cebu and across the country.

As such, we recognize the ROTC Games as a deceptive threat to our schools as bastions of academic freedom. These games should not distract us from the culture of violence and impunity created by the AFP-PNP in our schools. State forces, who are the main instructors and facilitators of the ROTC program, have a long and bloody track record that reeks of grave human rights abuses. Lest we forget that the military was behind the killing of Mark Welson Chua, an ROTC cadet from the University of Santo Tomas, in order to prevent him from exposing the corruption behind the ROTC program. Other victims are Seth Lopez and Arthur Salero, who both died due to ROTC-related hazing, and Willy Amihoy, who was attacked and killed last 2019 by his Corps Commander for the simple act of just looking at his cellphone during a session.

The scheduled ROTC Games Orientation and the ROTC Games itself come more than two years after the UP-DND Accord was unilaterally abrogated by then-President Rodrigo Duterte, which has paved the way for more human rights violations in UP campuses, such as the arrest of six activists and two bystanders during the June 5, 2020 Black Friday Protest against the Anti-Terror Law. We also know that the state has no regard for the safety of students, faculty, and non-teaching personnel as we remember the brutal abduction in broad daylight of UP Cebu alumni Dyan Gumanao and her fiancée Armand Dayoha, who is currently a student and an NSTP instructor himself, by suspected state forces earlier this year, and the extrajudicial killing of Chad Booc, a Lumad teacher and a Computer Science cum laude graduate, and four others in New Bataan, Davao in February 2022. 

QUESTIONABLE POLICY

Furthermore, the Memorandum of Understanding created by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for CHED-recognized institutions to forcibly carry out the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program is problematic and could have negative consequences for the partner schools due to the ambiguity of the agreement and its subsequent revisions.

The agreement suffers from the lack of specific clauses that would ensure the protection of students' rights when participating in the ROTC program. Despite outlining the responsibilities of the college and the army, the agreement fails to establish policies to safeguard students' civil liberties and human rights.

For instance, the agreement does not provide precise instructions regarding the use of force or disciplinary measures for students who breach the code of conduct. It also does not specify whether participation in the ROTC program is mandatory or voluntary. However, it has been laid out in the agreement that colleges are obliged to enroll at least 350 students in the said program. This forces institutions to allocate already scarce resources and instructors to the ROTC by default, lessening the institution’s capacity to develop CWTS and LTS programs, better alternatives to promoting nationalism and civic service.

In addition, the agreement does not provide a mechanism for addressing student complaints or grievances concerning mistreatment or abuse during their ROTC involvement. The absence of such safeguards may result in students being exposed to a range of physical or mental harm without any form of recourse or protection.

The ROTC Games, its orientation, and the active promotion of Mandatory ROTC are threats to UP Cebu students, faculty, and non-teaching personnel. This threat extends to other schools in Cebu and the entire nation. We must stand our ground and defend our schools from military presence and intervention, which has historically led to grave human rights abuses, such as the red-tagging of students and teachers, abduction of labor organizers, and killings of human rights defenders.

Sign our petition and join us in our demands!

We call for a stop to the implementation of Mandatory ROTC!

We demand that the resources for the ROTC Games be used towards funding other much-needed items in the education budget, such as additional school facilities and hiring of school personnel, among others. 

We demand that CHED, as the foremost government agency in charge of looking after the welfare of higher education institutions and their constituents, uphold their mandate in defending academic freedom. 

We demand that MOU undertakings for current and future ROTC programs require thorough consultations among students and teachers of the academic institution.

We demand that for any forthcoming activities concerning UP constituents and any government institution, consultations be conducted prior to implementation of the activity.

We demand for accountability from the AFP and PNP for the thousands of cases, undocumented or not, against human and democratic rights violation and most especially, from the national government, the US-MARCOS-DUTERTE regime, as the main perpetuator of the culture of impunity and violence!