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SOURCE: Press and Public Affairs Bureau

House approves NCSTP on 3rd reading
16 December 2022 12:40:48 PM


To institutionalize the vital role of the Filipino youth in nation-building, the House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading the measure that establishes a mandatory two-year
National Citizens Service Training Program (NCSTP) for all students in
higher education institutions (HEIs) that is envisioned to boost the country’s citizens’ reserve force.

House Bill (HB) No. 6687, or An Act Instituting a National Citizens
Service Training Program in All Public and Private Tertiary Education
Institutions, Repealing for the Purpose Republic Act 9163, Otherwise
Known as the National Service Training Program Act, and Appropriating
Funds Therefor, was approved with 276
affirmative votes against four and one abstention.

Its short title is “National Citizens Service Training Program Act,”
and is the substitute bill for 28 measures filed in the lower house
for the revival of the citizens cadet training for students in
tertiary education institutions.

Speaker Martin G. Romualdez, one of the principal authors of the
mother bill House Bill (HB) No. 6486, thanked his colleagues in the
House of Representatives for the swift but exhaustive deliberations on
the measure that was certified as urgent by President Ferdinand
“Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

“The House of Representatives has been working really hard – day in
and day out – to pass many important pieces of legislation that we all
believe will contribute immensely to nation-building. And the NCSTP
bill is one of them,” Romualdez said.

“I congratulate all my colleagues in the lower chamber, even the ones
who expressed opposition to the measure, for the resulting bill is one
that has undergone rigorous scrutiny. And for that, we accomplish our
role here in the Legislature with flying colors,” he added.

HB 6687 calls for the establishment of a two-year NCSTP that will be
mandatory for all students enrolled in undergraduate degree programs
in all public and private HEIs, including those enrolled in
technical-vocational education and training (TVET) programs or courses
of TESDA.

One of the bill’s objectives include is to “enhance the capacity of
its citizens to mobilize and perform their constitutional duty to
render personal military or civil service to the [country] in times of
calamities and disasters, national or local emergencies, rebellion,
invasion or war” through the program.

“The NCST shall be administered to cover undergraduate and
postsecondary TVET students for at least four (4) semesters or two
hundred forty (240) hours over two (2) school years, unless otherwise
allowed by the CHED or TESDA …,“ the measure read.

The agencies tasked to implement the NCSTP are CHED and TESDA, in
consultation with the Department of National Defense.

Upon completion of the NCSTP, these “citizen-cadets” shall be deemed
as NCST graduates and will be incorporated in the National Service
Reserve Corps (NSRC) that will be created under the measure and the
AFP Reserve Force.

“It (NSRC) shall be civilian in nature and shall be a source for
volunteers and conscripts in times of national or local necessity,
calamities, emergencies, disasters, or armed conflict to perform
non-combat and non-military duties and services as the President or
the appropriate local sanggunian may deem necessary,” the measure
continued.

The NSRC will be under the control and supervision of the Office of
Civil Defense under NDRRMC.(END)

 
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