For almost a century since it was established in 1912, the Reserve Officers Training Corps or ROTC was mostly mandatory for male college students. It was the unfortunate murder of University of Santo Tomas sophomore Mark Welson Chua that led to the program ceasing to be a college requirement, all because he exposed the corruption and abuse within his university’s ROTC unit.
This episode’s companion photos: instagram.com/p/CfWvE4FPy0w
References:
- https://businessmirror.com.ph/2016/05/24/mandatory-military-training-is-it-time-3/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_Philippines
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mark_Chua
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_Officers%27_Training_Corps_(Philippines)
- https://mb.com.ph/2021/03/18/remembering-mark-welson-chua/
- https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/06/20/22/sara-duterte-hopes-mandatory-rotc-a-congress-priority
- https://varsitarian.net/news/20090412/exposing_the_cancer
- https://varsitarian.net/special-reports/20180318/family-still-hopes-for-justice-seventeen-years-after-mark-welson-chuas-death
- https://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-mandatory-rotc-for-grades-11-and-12-not-yet-a-law
- https://www.philstar.com/metro/2002/02/12/150323/chua-slay-suspect-yields
- https://www.philstar.com/metro/2002/02/24/151699/doj-seeks-extradition-mark-chua-slay-suspect
- https://www.philstar.com/metro/2004/04/01/244779/ust-student-gets-death
- https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/inside-track/175638-duterte-trick-out-rotc/
Music: “This House” and “Echoes of Time v2” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Photo above via varsitarian.net
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