(PEDXINGISMO S02.Ep02)
Many years ago I attended a conference in Bangkok participated in by Human Rights (HR) activists from South East Asia. Among the participants were two young HR activists from Singapore. They didn’t finish the closing ceremony of the conference because they were hurrying for their flight back to Singapore.
Finding them at the hotel lobby with their luggage ready, I asked them what’s the rush? They said they wouldn’t want to miss their flight home, because they were to report for their “National Service (NS)” duty the next day. Singapore’s NS is a mandatory conscription and duty that every male citizen and PR (Permanent Resident) must undertake upon attaining the age of 18.
I asked them, as Human Rights activists shouldn’t they be fighting this law? They have a long reply, but I can recall the gist of it that goes, “as citizens it is our patriotic duty to serve our country.” I may have forgotten their names, but their reply stuck to my mind to this day. I’m just amazed how a country we negatively perceive as an authoritarian Police state has citizens proudly proclaiming their patriotism.
In the Philippines most activists, old and new, has this blind attachment to the past struggle against the dictatorship, although a lot are just hearsay witnesses of this past. Their mindset is hardwired to hate government, especially the Military. The obtrude Maoist national democratic narrative has prescribed that everything the government does is to be opposed and the AFP to be condemned as berdugo and kaaway. They hate the so-called Militarism of government, but they don’t condemn the CPP-NPA-NDF who has this delusion of revolution boxed in a militarist War strategy. While they resist ROTC and oppose a Mandatory Military Service for the youth, they don’t condemn and in fact enable the NPA’s recruitment of the youth, even young children, as soldiers.
We need a Mandatory Military Service for our youth. I believe it will help develop and instill in our youth a strong sense of patriotism in peace as well as in war. To fight all threats to our security and sovereignty both domestic and foreign is a patriotic duty incumbent upon us citizens.
And while we’re on this, I would love that our old Panatang Makabayan be reinstated too. I find the new one a bit weak in spirit and written in a snowflakey fashion, just my two cents.
Kabataan Sumapi sa AFP!