Entering the Portal and the First Push-Ups

My first push-ups did not happen in the first training day. It happened during my enlistment.

* * *

The enrollment procedure in UP Manila is such that, all your academic and PE subjects would be enlisted in the Form 5, while the ROTC enlistment would be a dirty mark on your paper. As a process, this would mean that you would easily get through your academic subjects, but you have to go to the far-flung ROTC headquarters to finish your enrollment for the first semester for the freshmen.

Before I go to the Office of Student Affairs for special assessment (I was under STFAP bracket 4), I have to go to ROTC to enlist. By the word enlist, students get that wrong notion that you just go there and enlist yourself in one of the units (I did not even have such a notion... I only thought of ROTC as a subject). I was one of those with the wrong notion.

At the entrance to the Sports Science and Wellness Center (a place I would soon call my home... but that is still a long time to come), stands a board with four short coupon bonds, each with numbered instructions on what you should do, what you are required to bring, and when they should be done.

There were instructions for Military Science 11, 12, 21 and 22.

Without knowledge of what "military science" is, I read all the instructions, including those for light duty, exempted, foreigners... all of them. I could feel from the other enlistees that this is indeed the most dreaded place in UP.

Even the security guard (a close friend of the cadet officers) is helping in building up the tension and fear of the unknown.

I saw the list of papers. A couple of ROTC forms, short and long coupon bonds, folders and envelopes... that should be easy enough. But the pictures. 2X2 and 1X1.

I have to find a Rush Photo developing place. I have to finish my enrollment today (wherever I got the idea that I had to finish my enrollment then, I have no idea).

* * *

I got my pictures and stuff, and braved the unknown (if that's an acceptable expression). The board covered the hall of the ROTC area, and only one person could go through. As stated in the instructions, you "stick to the wall" and always "move on the double". You "do not eyeball the cadet officers". Make sure all your materials are present when you meet the Station 1 officer.

It was the most fearsome experience. Getting out of the safety of the known world and into the dark place called the "Laguman ng Pagsasanay ng Pinunong Panlaan," the Tagalog of Reserve Officer Training Corps.

In here, we enlistees fear, anything could happen to us, and our parents would never know what would happen. Which was true in a way.

A lot of students went there with parents and all. That's when I thought first, "Why are they here with their parents? Isn't this college? We have to be able to stand up already."

I have to ignore that observation, somehow thinking in disgust how a man could behave. I walked on.

Or run.

I saw around less than ten students before me, in the ground floor, along the corridor, sticking to the wall.

I tried to remember the things thought in CAT-I. What were they? I screamed in my mind. What a worthless subject, I can't remember anything from that subject.

I remembered, in formation, a person at the back is supposed to look at the nape of the person in front. Hmmm. That's an idea.

The two hours of sticking to the wall and not rolling your eyeballs passed. Finally, I got through Station 1. I presented my enlistment materials, the lady (a sponsor, I learned) gave me the ROTC papers I have to fill up. Those were done in less than two minutes. A record breaker (in my life in the Corps, I constantly break my records... multiple times).

It was in Station 3 when you enter the room again (after leaving the previous station in a manner rigidly ROTC) to enlist finally in a unit. I was the fifth person to enter in line. The person who tried to get in.... well, he tried to get in, but he did not get in properly, so he was given 10 push-ups.

It was supposed to be just like that... wait for my turn to get in. In a matter of two hours, something so alien to me imediately got into my second nature (saying, "Sir, Cadet Private [State your surname], requesting permission to enter the room, Sir!" to enter and saying, "Sir, Cadet Private [State your surname], requesting permission to leave the room, Sir!").

Until the person in front of the line failed, and he has to make 10 push-ups, and a female cadet officer asked all enlistees, including me, to "sympathise". Is that what I remember it was?

It is.

I learned when the female cadet officer shouting "Times TWO, Times THREE!" I was on my hands after hearing three.

It was my first experience of physical exercise for ROTC. And the semester has not even begun yet.

I hate this, I thought.

* * *

Of course, I learned the meaning of that exercise when I became, not a cadet officer, but a member of the class Vibora 2001.