Philippines military training for students ‘aims at stifling dissent’

Scholars are concerned that legislation which would require students in the Philippines to serve two years of mandatory military training is aimed at stifling dissent and could put young people at risk of assault.

The country, which recently voted in president Ferdinand Marcos Jr – son of its deposed dictator – is seen as a US ally in pushing back against Beijing’s encroachment in the South China Sea. But the administration change has worried academics, who fear it could seek to assert its brand of political ideology in universities.

A bill to make Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) mandatory is being reviewed by the Philippines’ senate, with its backers hoping to implement the law by year’s end, according to Nikkei Asia. If passed, it would mandate a two-year period of training for university students, with several hours of instruction twice a week for all domestic and international learners.

Jayson Lamchek, a human rights scholar at Deakin University and author of a book on counterterrorism in the Philippines and Indonesia, believed the move was meant to target critics at home rather than defend the country from external threats.

“The institution of military service is meant to ‘discipline’ the students, that is, to make students obey and accept the status quo,” he said.

“I fear for the students who are naturally defiant and idealistic because the military will treat them as armed rebels in the making, if not already rebels, even though all they do is exercise their legal rights.”

In more recent times, university campuses have become a “natural target” for a political agenda that seeks to curtail academic freedom, Dr Lamchek said.

“Even today, the military thinks that it exists to safeguard elites from leftists who demand reforms in government, land ownership and employment conditions…Students understand that reforms are needed if they are to have any viable future in the country.”

Carlos Piocos, professor of literature at De La Salle University in the Philippine capital Manila, was also sceptical that students would be truly “buffing up” the country’s defences against China.

“How can a two-year programme by instructors who are not really part of our military…be enough to create a strong line of defence among our students?” he asked. 

Professor Piocos believed the introduction of mandatory training would also cause foreign students to rethink their studies in the Philippines.

But he added: “More than the issue of turning off international students, there is a real threat of incidence of sexual assaults and sexual harassment cases should female students be required to undergo military training.”

Professor Piocos noted hazing cases that have led to student deaths – which he feared would increase if the programme is made mandatory again. “ROTC has a [chequered] history, not just from the cases of violence and corruption but also from the government and higher education institutions’ incapacity to resolve those cases.”

More broadly, he believed the initiative took attention away from the “very real crises” facing higher education, including underfunding of institutions and a “learning gap” because of Covid-19 lockdowns.

“What seems to be clear is that the government, [which] is routinely red-tagging our universities, stifling legitimate dissent, academic freedom and critical thinking, and branding our academicians, teachers and students [as] terrorists and communists, is trying to use this issue as a smokescreen to avoid facing real threats to our education,” he said.

pola.lem@timeshighereducation.com