BUTUAN CITY, July 23 (PNA) — BGen. Paolo Leo Ma G. Miciano, commander of the Army Reserved Command (ARESCOM) said in a media interview on Wednesday that the country’s Army reservists are ready for any eventuality to augment the country’s regular forces, be it external or internal threats or in times of disasters.
The official was the guest of honor and speaker during the turnover of command rites held at the 15th Regional Community Defense Group headquarters, Philippine Army Advance Command Post, Barangay Bancasi, this city.
Miciano said that the ARESCOM which a major unit of the Philippine Army has continued with its mandate which is to develop, train, administer and equip reservists and prepare them to augment the regular forces in cases of national emergencies such as wars, invasion or a full scale rebellion, as well as during disasters and calamities.
According to Miciano, ARESCOM has 50,000 ready reserve forces nationwide and more or less equal number of standby reserve forces. “Ready reserve forces can be readily mobilized in a certain number of days, while the standby reserves are those aged and retirees, but who can still provide services, not necessarily combat actions but the services which are very necessary in cases of the aforementioned eventualities,” Miciano explained.
According to him, the ARESCOM recruits reservists from various sources such as the Reserved Officers Training Course (ROTC), the Citizen’s Military Training (CMTs) or military retirees.
He said that the country’s reserved forces is also ready and prepared as well as equipped to respond not only during external and internal security threats but also during emergencies, disasters and calamities.
“Yearly, we are frequently visited by typhoons, floods and earthquakes. Thus, included in the trainings of the reservists are disaster and calamities response, water search and rescue, collapsed structure rescue and retrieval operations,” Miciano said. (PNA)