When asked how she will empower the young generation to take part in nation-building, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio said that if she won, she would push for mandatory military service among young adults, both male and female, once they reach reached the age of eighteen, or right before they would enter college. She also clarified that her program wouldn’t be like her father President Rodrigo Duterte’s (failed) proposal to revive the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). But like her father—and it shouldn’t come as a surprise—the military mania runs deep in the family and the presidential daughter wants nothing more than to follow her father’s fascist footsteps.
The inspiration behind Sara’s conscription proposal are Israel and South Korea, two countries that are known to continually mandate military service among young adults: In Israel, all Israeli citizens both men and women over the age of eighteen. In South Korea, whose enlistment system is well-known to Filipinos crazy over K-drama actors and K-pop idol entertainers, only males are compelled to render military service.
But unlike Israel and South Korea, the Philippines is not on any “war footing” with its neighbors, according to Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana. Even the maritime dispute with China is not basis for compulsory conscription. Even her father, the commander in chief, saw compulsory ROTC not as aiding the country’s external defense or as a means to ward off the China threat: he had wanted it back to back up the bloody war against drugs. In short, he wants ROTC cadets to assist in his “tokhang” genocide, not to confront China. Despite building on Philippine waters military facilities with their guns pointed at Filipinos, President Duterte has called China a “friend.”
Perhaps Sara should ask herself where she would get the budget for conscription. Lorenzana, while open to the vice presidential candidate’s proposal, said that such would face “huge hurdles.” The government would have to erect training camps all over the country as well as allocate resources, both financial and human, he added. And in year two of Covid, the country, and its next leaders, should prioritize not only maximizing health capacity, but also post-pandemic recovery.
Sara should consider the glaringly obvious needs of the youth. Would it be really worthwhile for 18-year-olds to give up a pivotal period of life just to prove their patriotism? Moreover, conscription, like mandatory ROTC, may lead to corruption. Thomasian Mark Welson Chua, blew the whistle on the abuses of the ROTC, was brutally killed and his death still looms over conversations of reviving the program. Obviously, Sara is truly daddy’s girl. They never learn.
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