I. ABSTRACT

The Reserve Officers Training Corps was a long-running government program to train young
people for military service and to join the Armed Forces of the Philippines Reserve Force to
produce a competent force that could meet the army's demands in case of war or disaster.
Although Reserve Officers' Training Corps is always considered a program involving exhausting and severe training, this also includes enhancing one's discipline, and they even have lectures to discuss with the students. This study assessed the Perception of Grade 12 Senior High School
Students on the proposed Mandatory ROTC. Alfredo Lim sponsored Senate Bill 2224, and
Gullas sponsored House Bill 5460, seeking to reinstate ROTC as obligatory military service. At
the time, Voltaire Gazmin, Secretary of National Defense, proposed making the training
obligatory for college students in 2013. President Rodrigo Duterte endorsed a proposal in 2017
to reintroduce ROTC training as a mandatory requirement for senior high school students in both
universities and colleges. This study used a sequential explanatory design. The researchers
utilized a combination of adapted and derived questionnaires from a previous study to conduct
surveys and interviews with the participants. For Quantitative, a Percentage and Frequency
distribution, weighted mean, ANOVA, and Scheffe Method, a post hoc test was used to treat
data. At the same time, a thematic descriptive phenomenology was used as a qualitative analysis
method. The results showed that grade 12 senior high students' perception of the proposed
mandatory ROTC is highly knowledgeable. It was discovered that grade 12 senior high students
have prior knowledge of the suggested mandatory ROTC and are well-informed about the
possible effects of ROTC on their personal growth. The results suggest that future
implementation should make the program safer for the children who will participate in trusting
the goals of the Reserve Officer Training Corps, as safety is one of the primary concerns and
reasons why some students remain skeptical of the program. Furthermore, implementing the said
program should also consider how it will not affect students' academic performance as it belongs
to their significant concerns.