300 unemployed college graduates join Marines

Manila Bulletin Saturday, 22 August 2009
By: Tony Rimando & Vic Arevalo

ZAMBOANGA CITY - Failure to
find employment for the past several
years prompted some 300 local college
graduates from the Zamboanga
Peninsula and Autonomous Region
in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to join
the Philippine Marines, completely
ignoring the high risk in the life of
soldiers who suffered 23 casualties
during a recent armed clashes with
members of the Abu Sayyaf Group in
nearby Basilan.
Maj. Gen. Juancho Sabban, commanding
general of the Philippine
Marines (PM), said the 300 local
recruits were among the 1,200 soldiers
the Marines intends to recruit
nationwide this year, where close to
850 of them or 70 percent have been
enlisted as of the end of July after
passing the necessary physical and
neuro examinations.
The new local recruits - 23 of
them females - took their oath early
this week before Sabban at the Naval Forces Headquarters at the Western
Mindanao Command (Westmincom)
here.
They are scheduled to report to
Ternate, Cavite to undergo a six month
rigorous training.
According to Sabban, this year's
biggest number of qualified applicants
came from the Western Mindanao
provinces ofZamboanga del Sur;
Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga
Sibugay and Zamboanga City,and the
ARMM provinces of Basilan, Tawi-
Tawi and Sulu.
Sabban said a part of the new recruits'
six-month training period will
be conducted right here in Western
Mindanao where, he said, most of
them will later be deployed.
The newly recruited soldiers said
they enlisted in the Marines not only
to help the government pursue its
peace and order drive but also because
of financial difficulty owing to
their failure to find jobs after finishing
their college education, many of them
graduates of Bachelor of Science in
Criminology, several years ago.