Catholic youth group says Sara Duterte’s plan to reintroduce compulsory service is not in tune with modern society
Philippines’ Vice President-elect Sara Duterte takes her oath before Supreme Court associate justice Ramon Hernando (left) and her mother Elizabeth Zimmerman and outgoing president Rodrigo Duterte during the inauguration ceremony in Davao City on June 19. (Photo: AFP)
A Catholic youth group has urged the Philippines’ new vice president and incoming education secretary, Sara Duterte, not to push ahead with a campaign pledge to reintroduce a compulsory military program for young Filipinos.
The June 20 call came a day after Duterte, daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, was sworn in as the country’s 15th vice president.
Prior to the presidential election in May, Duterte said she would revive mandatory military service to “instill nationalism” among Filipino youth if she was elected.
She is expected to make all Filipino youths undertake a program called the Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC) when she becomes education secretary in the government of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. after he takes office on June 30.
The program had been abolished by former president Gloria Arroyo after several hazing deaths sparked a public outcry
“We hope that the new vice president, acting as the new education secretary, would really conduct a serious study about bringing back the required military program for our youth. I hope she’ll be open to debate,” the Knights of the Altar of San Vicente Ferrer Parish in Cavite province, south of Manila, said in a Facebook post.
“What the ROTC offers is very limited if the goal is to develop patriotism among young Filipinos. We can love our country by first knowing its history and to be aware of the cries of the poor”
The altar servers said Duterte should focus more on working with church groups if her aim was to develop young people’s patriotism as reintroducing compulsory service is not in tune with modern society and trends.
“We believe in newer methods of teaching nationalism such as volunteer work and exposure to church mission areas, to come face to face with poverty, to smell poverty and to experience how it is to be with the poor,” the group said.
It said schools and learning institutions should be fighting disinformation perpetuated in social media, not a military program that instills “false” fear and discipline among them.
“What the ROTC offers is very limited if the goal is to develop patriotism among young Filipinos. We can love our country by first knowing its history and to be aware of the cries of the poor,” the group added.
The group also pointed to the fact that Duterte’s father had admitted this month that he had sought to be exempted from the military program when he was a youth.
The altar servers said the revelation was proof that military training for youth would be ineffective.
“Even President Duterte himself admitted he did not want to do it. The goal to instill nationalism through a military program among the young isn’t effective in this social media age,” altar server Jess Francia told UCA News.
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