The Commonwealth Government is presently engaged in the development and utilization of its resources to meet the anticipated problems of future independence. In the fields of economics, politics, industry, social science, education and national security, great questions present themselves constantly for consideration, and the effects of answers developed today will extend indefinitely into the future. Among these questions, none is clothed in greater significance than that of providing an adequate security - of developing the means and methods that will assure reasonable protection for the nation once it has been completely freed of all outside control, and, coincidentally, stripped of all outside support.

Military discussions need not, in these days, be prefaced with long and exhaustive arguments to prove a nation's need for defensive strength. World events, daily reported in our newspapers, continue to hammer home the deplorable fact that life, liberty and property are not safe in a defenseless nation when its wealth is coveted by a more powerful neighbor. Indeed, this is not a newly discovered truth - two thousand years ago the greatest of all men said, "When a strong man, armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace."

In the program adopted by the Philippines to meet its defensive requirements, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps is an indispensable feature. Consequently, in a very direct and important fashion, the destiny of an independent Philippines will be influenced and determined by the Reserve Officers' Training Corps of today and of tomorrow.

Because of the great significance to future Filipino welfare of this organization I feel particularly honored in the invitation to address you today. Entertaining such a conviction, I have not come here merely to offer you customary, though very sincere, congratulations upon the obvious perfection of your military ceremonies, nor upon the completion of another definite step in your academic and military education. Neither shall I attempt, in resounding generality, to expound upon those ennobling human sentiments and beautiful philosophies that are so frequently the subject of the commencement discourse. Rather, I am here to talk to you as one soldier to another on military matters that I am convinced will become of increasing importance to you and to your country as the years roll on.

As members of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps you are primarily citizens, and secondarily, soldiers. In the first of these capacities you enjoy all the rights and privileges of any other citizen; in the other you are compelled to forego such of those rights and privileges as involve participation in the political activities, decisions and policies of your nation. This distinction must be meticulously observed, because, in a democracy, the military is and must remain subordinate to civil power; the army is nothing but the servant, the tool, of civil government. Since this discussion is between soldiers, let us not concern ourselves with the wisdom of any political decision of the past or speculate on the possibility of significant political changes of the future. Rather, let us accept the political pattern as it now exists and as now projected by existing conventions, and confine ourselves to an investigation of our own duties, our own responsibilities and our own opportunities within this sphere.

The Philippine Defense plan was conceived in the purpose of providing maximum security at minimum financial cost. Of such dominating influence was, and is, the need for minimizing expense, that all thought of developing a strong professional army had to be flatly rejected. For this reason if for no other, the citizen-soldier must be the bulwark of Philippine defense! Lack of money with which to hire workmen for any task is not serious, provided we are ready, and able, to do the job ourselves. So long as there exists among a nation’s citizens a common and flaming determination to protect themselves and their homes against any invasion by force, they can, in unified effort, develop a formidable defensive power. The Philippine Defense plan assumes that this spirit does exist and will continue to grow and flourish in these Islands.

As a consequence of these considerations and assumptions, the defense plan simply provides the machinery whereby the free citizens of this country may cooperate toward their own protection. They must be reasonably trained, properly equipped, well organized and efficiently led, so that they may be instantaneously ready in every province and barrio to line your beaches with the defensive fires that will beat back any attempted invasion. The plans attempt to provide, in detail, for satisfaction of these various requirements.

The function of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, in this great program, is to develop commissioned officers for the citizen forces; that is, for the great bulk of the whole Army.

The officer is the keystone of the military arch. No army can carry out a difficult task, indeed it can scarcely perform the routine functions of peace without an efficient officer corps. Ragged armies, poorly equipped, badly outnumbered and half starved have, in the world’s history, earned astounding victories when efficiently led. On the other hand, I know of no army in which the officer corps was rotten with corruption or professionally was inept, lazy and stupid, that has achieved decisive results, even over an inconsequential opponent.

You are a cross-section of the Philippines finest young manhood, a cross-section that has been unusually favored in educational and cultural advantages, and possibly, also in economic standing. You are the men to whom others of your generation will naturally turn, in times of stress, for leadership. If, in that greatest of all crises, war, you are to be worthy of your birthright, and ready upon your country’s call to lead men in battle, it means years of study and self-preparation.

There is no royal road to this goal - good blood and breeding may produce an excellent raw material, but only earnest and continued work can transform it into a useful lieutenant, an efficient captain, a capable general. Successful defense of these Islands will never be possible unless you devote yourselves to this work, this study, this preparation, even while you are engaged in wresting a living from the world for yourselves and your dependents. Furthermore, you must do this without financial remuneration, your sole reward the sanctity of your firesides, the esteem of your countrymen and the approval of your own conscience.

Here, then, is the challenge to you as individuals and as an organization. Will you make of yourselves good officers? Between success and failure lies a vast gulf of personal and national possibilities - even perhaps the difference between virile independence and hopeless bondage.

The thorough training of an officer is an intricate process. On the physical side he must develop his stamina and strength, as well as a certain dexterity in those movements and exercises in which he, as a junior officer, is required to be an instructor. His mental training includes general, as well as a variety of technical subjects such as organization, armament, tactics, supply and logistics. He must specialize in aviation, infantry, artillery or another of the arms or services. He must develop his analytical powers, his judgment, his initiative. He must know something of practical or applied psychology, he must be a bit of a doctor, an engineer, something even of a butcher, a baker and a cook. On the moral side he must be fair and just, honest and straight-forward; he must learn to make firm decisions and to accept responsibility for them without seeking to shift it either to superior or subordinate. He must understand men so that he may lead rather than merely command them; he must achieve self-confidence and courage, and, finally, he must be loyal - loyal to his Government, to his superiors, to himself and to his subordinates.

These qualifications may not be forced upon any individual. He may be assisted in their acquisition, he may be advised, he may be instructed, but in the final analysis, they come only of his own intense desire, his own straight-thinking and understanding, his own work, his own sweat!

The government provides you necessary equipment, it assigns instructors and it prescribes courses of training designed to teach you professional technique, and calculated to develop your powers of leadership. In the class room and on the drill ground the officer may learn much; but his natural field of instruction is on the march and in camp with his men. There he practices as he learns, and he learns with his mind, his muscles, and his heart. Never, so long as you are serious in your desire to develop yourself into a good officer, pass by an opportunity to go to the field with the men of your command. Every minute so spent will yield untold dividends if the time should come when the mobilization call is not for training, but for war.

Though by law you are obligated to such military service as your country may demand of you - your great President and your Government have not failed to realize that service performed only on a required basis cannot assure the ultimate safety of the Philippines. Woodrow Wilson once said “The highest form of efficiency is the spontaneous cooperation of a free people.” The Philippine plan goes even farther than this. It says, in effect, “The defense of the Philippines is completely dependent upon the spontaneous cooperation of its citizens, the law is nothing more than the written expression of a universal purpose.”

Your part, as the potential leaders in this cooperative enterprise, consequently requires more than routine work in the instructional courses laid out for you. These must be pursued thoroughly, willingly, even eagerly. The impulse for greater opportunity to learn should come from you - not from the Government. Never should we hear of a Filipino seeking to avoid military instruction, and if there should be any such, the contempt of his fellows should silence him forever. Moreover, you men, selected for training as leaders in time of war should also be the crusaders for and the shining examples of this cooperative spirit, in time of peace. Just as you have more than the average to lose in the event of national disaster, so should you, aside from nobler and more unselfish reasons, be most active in providing insurance against disaster. No physically fit young man in the universities and colleges of these Islands should permit himself to be excluded from the complete ROTC instruction. Let your actions prove to the contrary that the ROTC places pride of service above personal convenience, duty above immediate economic gain. When this organization, operating in this spirit, is graduating yearly into the Reserve ranks of the Army at least 2,000 young, eager, well-trained lieutenants, who, thereafter will pursue higher courses of instruction to the limit of their respective abilities, then the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps will be doing its full duty to the nation.

No person familiar with the long record of this institution in contributing to Filipino progress and welfare, and with the reputation of its President and faculty for public spirited leadership, can doubt that, assembled on this campus, are all the ingredients necessary to success. The result is in your hands - and if you meet the issue with courage and determination, then each of you will be doing his part in assuring that the future of the Philippine Islands will be as a beautiful and enduring edifice, in which the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps will be one of the principal supporting pillars.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER