Kabataan party-list lawmaker Raoul Manuel on Wednesday solid doubt on a ballot exhibiting that 78% of Filipino adults need obligatory ROTC restored, pointing to the ballot’s wording and saying college students ought to have been the bulk surveyed.
The Pulse Asia ballot was commissioned by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, the chairperson of the Senate primary training panel and an advocate for the return of obligatory ROTC. The pollster stated it surveyed 1,200 Filipinos nationwide aged 18 and above.
“Recently, Pulse Asia released a survey showing that 8 out of 10 Filipinos agree to reviving Mandatory ROTC for all college students. I’ve seen those questions aren’t carefully worded. If I were the participant, it seems to me that saying ‘No’ will make a respondent appear to be anti-discipline or unpatriotic. Who wouldn’t say yes to that?” Manuel stated.
The ballot describes the ROTC or Reserved Officers’ Training Corps as “a program which aims to teach the youth about discipline and love of country through military training,” including that by way of the ROTC, the youth “will also learn about leadership and patriotism” and that “[s]ome of those who oppose ROTC say that it only leads to bad experiences such as hazing, abuse, harassment and corruption in schools.”
Manuel stated that present and future school college students didn’t comprise the vast majority of respondents. “If we need to scientifically measure the opinion of any group, it should be the primary stakeholders—students—who were previously deprived of sufficient representation in Senate proceedings,” he stated.
“Statistics should aid in policymaking rather than be another tool for disinformation to forward the interests of those in power,” added Manuel, who completed his bachelor’s diploma in Applied Mathematics as summa cum laude. “Surveys can be done better.”
Gatchalian earlier commissioned a survey that stated 77% of fogeys had been in favor of obligatory ROTC for Grade 11 and 12 college students.
GMA News Online has reached out to Pulse Asia and Gatchalian for remark. — BM, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
