The Student Council Alliance of the Philippines (SCAP) and Akbayan! Youth believes that the urgent push for Senate Bill 2034, which mandates the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) for tertiary and vocational students, is a misprioritization.

The budget for the measure, it said, should be utilized to address the needs of the education sector.

Senate President Chiz Escudero’s pronouncements at a media forum, the group said, highlights the financial burden of implementing mandatory ROTC, a concern shared by SCAP and Akbayan Youth.

“It will be tough. To give you an idea of what Congress will be weighing... P27 billion or P8 billion a year can fund a lot of things in the Department of Health, in the Department of Education,” he said.

Escudero further noted the issue of absorbing ROTC graduates into the reserve force, saying: “They [also] do not have the ability to absorb this amount of reserve force members. There is already a backlog even under the current National Service Training Program (NSTP).”

SCAP national chairperson Ken Paolo Gilo echoed these sentiments, stressing that the government’s focus should be on solving the education crisis rather than diverting funds to Mandatory ROTC.