Conscription in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

has been implemented at several points in the country's history. , no mandatory conscription is in effect in the Philippines and

military service Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job ( volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Some nations (e.g., Mexico) require ...

is entirely voluntary as stated in the 1987 constitution. However, there have been calls for mandatory conscription by Vice President Sara Duterte, along with several Senators pushing for a bill to introduce mandatory

Reserve Officers' Training Corps The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. Overview While ROTC graduate officers serve in al ...

enrollment.

History

Mandatory

has been employed several times over the course of Philippine history.

Spanish Empire

During Spanish colonial rule,

Filipinos Filipinos ( tl, Mga Pilipino) are the people who are citizens of or native to the Philippines. The majority of Filipinos today come from various Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups, all typically speaking either Filipino, English and/or othe ...

were drafted for military service and deployed as auxiliary forces both in local and foreign campaigns of the

Spanish Empire The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...

. One author states that the Spanish

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...

s supervised the conscription of parishioners into the colonial army. The Spaniards evidently commended the Filipinos' military service, citing them as excellent soldiers in campaigns such as the taking of

Ternate Ternate is a city in the Indonesian province of North Maluku and an island in the Maluku Islands. It was the ''de facto'' provincial capital of North Maluku before Sofifi on the nearby coast of Halmahera became the capital in 2010. It is off the ...

. During the first phase of the Philippine Revolution (1896-1897), more than 17,000 native Filipinos were in the Spanish

order of battle In modern use, the order of battle of an armed force participating in a military operation or campaign shows the hierarchical organization, command structure, strength, disposition of personnel, and equipment of units and formations of the arme ...

, 60% of which were made up of members of the ''

Guardia Civil The Civil Guard ( es, Guardia Civil, link=no; ) is the oldest law enforcement agency in Spain and is one of two national police forces. As a national gendarmerie force, it is military in nature and is responsible for civil policing under the au ...

''.

Philippine Commonwealth

Conscription was introduced prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

during the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935 with a term of enlistment of 5 and a half months. President

Manuel L. Quezon Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina, (; 19 August 1878 – 1 August 1944), also known by his initials MLQ, was a Filipino lawyer, statesman, soldier and politician who served as president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from 1935 until his de ...

issued Executive Order No. 207 in 1939 in order to implement the

National Defense Act of 1935 {{Infobox legislation , long_title = An Act to provide National Defense of the Philippines, penalizing certain violations thereof, appropriating funds therefor, and for other purposes , citation Commonwealth Act No. 1, territorial_extent = Philip ...

, otherwise known as Commonwealth Act No. 1, the embodiment of the national defense plan formulated by General Douglas MacArthur for the Philippine Commonwealth. This

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of t ...

made ROTC obligatory at all colleges and universities with a total enrollment of 100 students and greater. This measure was made in order to help fill out the

reserve force A military reserve force is a military organization whose members have military and civilian occupations. They are not normally kept under arms, and their main role is to be available when their military requires additional manpower. Reserve ...

requirement of 400,000 men by 1946 and especially for junior reserve officers. However, after a trip to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

in 1939, Quezon concluded that Japan was much too powerful and that the Filipinos could not effectively defend their homeland. He therefore curtailed MacArthur's military preparedness program by halting conscription and reducing by half the number of reserves in training.

Martial Law under Ferdinand Marcos

Ferdinand Marcos declared

martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Marti ...

on 21 September 1972. He issued at least two Presidential

Decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used ...

s governing the terms of conscription of trainees into selective emergency military service, one for a period of 12 months in 1973 and another for a period of 18 months in 1974.

Present day

Conscription remains a possibility as Section 4, Article II of the Constitution of the Philippines states: In addition, the

National Service Training Program The National Service Training Program (NSTP) is a civic education and defense preparedness program students instituted by the Government of the Philippines on 23 July 2001 by virtue of Republic Act 9163, otherwise known as the "National Service Trai ...

, instituted by virtue of

Republic Act This article contains a partial list of Philippine laws. Sources of Philippine laws ;Notes : *Customs may be considered as supplementary source of law, however, customs which are contrary to law, public order or public policy shall not be ...

9163, is a

training Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. I ...

program for

national service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

, wherein both male and female college students of any

baccalaureate degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

course or technical vocational course in public or private educational institutions are obliged to undergo one of three program components for an academic period of two semesters.

Future implementation

In January 2022, before her election as

Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

, Sara Duterte called for mandatory conscription for all Filipinos above 18 years of age. After her election, the then-Vice President-elect stated that she wanted mandatory ROTC training under priority legislation. In July, Senators

Francis Tolentino Francis N Tolentino (; is a Filipino politician and lawyer serving as a Senator since 2019. He served as Chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) from 2010 to 2015 and was the Mayor of Tagaytay from 1995 to 2004. For ...

and

Robin Padilla Robinhood Ferdinand Cariño Padilla (; born November 23, 1969), known professionally as Robin Padilla, is a Filipino politician, television personality, martial artist, actor and director currently serving as a Senator of the Philippines since ...

announced support for a bill by Senator

Ronald Dela Rosa Ronald Marapon dela Rosa (born January 21, 1962), also known as Bato, is a Filipino politician and retired police officer who is currently serving as a senator of the Philippines since 2019. He served under the Duterte administration as the ...

that would introduce a mandatory ROTC for Filipino students in grades 11 and 12, with a voluntary advanced ROTC program available for the first two years of higher education. Dela Rosa stated that refiling the mandatory ROTC bill is the second highest of his "top 10 priority bills" to submit on the first session of the 19th Congress, which opened on 25 July.

References

{{Authority control

Military of the Philippines