VARIOUS youth groups from Metro Manila and the provinces of Zambales, Pampanga, Bulacan, Laguna and Cavite gathered in Sampaloc, Manila, to voice their support for the programs and policies of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. regarding the territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea between the Philippines and China.

Led by the newly established Alyansa Bantay Kapayapaan at Demokrasya (ABKD), around a thousand youth leaders gathered along Morayta, where a short play was presented to illustrate the collective unity of the people against the continued harassment and bullying by China Coast Guard (CCG) ships and Chinese maritime militia vessels of Filipino ships and fishermen in the West Philippine Sea.

After the play, the group marched to Mendiola, where they lit candles, prayed for peace, and called for unity among Filipinos "to defend and fight for the mandate given by the Filipino people to the Marcos administration against all threats and disunity."

"We think that the most important thing to end the CCG's harassment, intimidation and bullying of our ships and fishermen in the WPS is the strong unity of the Filipino people from the highest leadership of the country down to the bottom," said Rodolfo "RJ" Villena Jr., ABKD convenor and spokesman.

"We also showed through the staging of a short play that if Filipinos are united to act together and stand up, it is not far that we will be able to settle the misunderstanding of both sides peacefully," Villena added.

He said the youth wants their voice to be heard in condemning the harassment and intimidation of Philippine ships and Filipino fishermen and that this is not a solution to the territorial dispute.

"China must respect the maritime rights of the Philippines for the sake of peace. Filipinos should unite and stand up to defend the country's sovereignty," Villena said.

"China has no right to threaten and harm our soldiers and fishermen who are only insisting on their right to our territory," he added.

They also called on lawmakers to speed up the reinstitution of the mandatory Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) to prepare the youth for any threat to the country's sovereignty.

"We have to help our nation to have that consciousness, that awareness that we have to defend our territory," said Villena.

The revival of the ROTC program in schools nationwide will help instill that mindset among the youth, he said.

"We have to prepare our youth to be able to help defend our country in case anything happens," Villena said.

The ROTC is one of three components of the National Service Training Program (NSTP), the civic education and defense preparedness program for Filipino college students.

ROTC units in colleges and universities are organized through the Department of Military Science and Tactics, under joint supervision by the school administration and the Department of National Defense.

These units are, in turn, managed by active duty officers of the AFP and the reservist organization representatives of the major services, the Philippine Army Reserve Command of the Philippine Army, the Philippine Navy Reserve Command of the Philippine Navy, and the Philippine Air Force Reserve Command of the Philippine Air Force.

However, incidents of hazing and bribery in exchange for good grades and exemption from military service training and other scandals have hounded the ROTC program.

It was later made optional through the NSTP Act of 2001 following the killing of University of Santo Tomas sophomore cadet Mark Welson Chua, who had exposed corruption in the university's ROTC program.