President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has given the bill mandating tertiary level students to undergo the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program the go signal, Senator Francis Tolentino said.
In a radio interview, Tolentino said this means that plenary deliberations on the bill would resume following Congress’ month-long break.
“With the President’s go signal, the ROTC bill has been moved to Tier 1 from Tier 2 in the list of the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council – making it a top priority. So, when the session resumes, we expect to discuss it right away,” according to him.
The senator from Cavite believes that one remaining matter for the senators to resolve is the transitory provision, particularly on whether the program will last for one or two years.
“We can make the first year the basic course, followed by advanced training in the second year. For those who wish to specialize further, we can introduce an Executive ROTC curriculum,” explained Tolentino.
The basic program, he added, could integrate subjects on climate change and environmental stewardship, disaster preparedness, and civics to make the measure more relevant to current challenges.
The executive program could also feature courses on cyber security or naval warfare, in the case of cadets under the Philippine Navy.
The lawmaker may also introduce a provision that would allow smaller colleges to pool their resources to enable them to offer the ROTC program as a cluster as they lack the resources to implement ROTC on their own.
Meanwhile, Tolentino expressed confidence that there are enough numbers in the Senate to approve the measure, whose counterpart in the House of Representatives has already passed third reading.IMT
