PLATOON LEADERS COURSE 01-09

Am I ready to perform my duty? Have I really learned everything I need to be a good junior officer? These are just among of the many questions that repeatedly playing in my mind but still unanswerable. I honestly admit that I was not confident enough before I came to this division. I also believe that no officer would deny that they felt the same feeling when they reported to their first unit assignment as new second lieutenants because a doubt to yourself is a natural feeling when you perform a new task.

On May 18, 2009, at 9DTU, 9ID, the Platoon Leaders’ Course Class 01-09 was opened under the supervision of our Course Director, Major Harold M. Cabunoc. Most of us, if not all, expected that our training would be very relaxing and not so significant considering that we already know everything we needed. We thought that we already learned much from OCS or in PMA. But we were wrong.

During our training, we slowly learned our weaknesses at the back of the strengths we have which might lead us to failure if we have not tried to overcome it. Most of us have not realized and were not aware how we will fall if we fail to appreciate and apply everything we learned.

PMA or OCS did not introduce yet to their cadets the new technologies nowadays that have been a lot helpful and made our combat operations easier. Let me sight the GPS, one of our equipments where in our senior officers probably expect that the new generation of new second lieutenants know how to operate and use all its functions. We were not even taught about it in PMA. Only in this course I learned the several functions of that gadget. Another is the signifance of our Harris radios. We just learned after our PLC how to input Transmission Encryption Key so that no other signal gadgets could monitor our voice communication except our friendly forces with the same TEK. Those instances alone signify the lack of training of the newly graduated officers from their different sources of commissionship.

Our course director had also refreshed us to the basic yet very important topics that are very helpful to our roles as platoon leaders. Some are even new to us. We were introduced to the AFP Grievance System or the proper feedback system, how to request indirect fire support, combat patrols, leadership principles, troop leading procedures, combat life-saving, and many more were reviewed and this time were accompanied with the experiences of our instructors especially Major Cabunoc, so that we could fully understand the importance of all of these which was very effective and helpful on our part in terms of learning process.

The most important lesson that this course had provided us is confidence. Our course director made sure that after our course, we are confident enough on dealing with our future subordinates and roles and responsibilities as second lieutenants. To ensure this objective, he included in our program of instruction the proper methods of instruction to lessen our sweat while talking in front of the crowd. As part of this subject, we were given the chance to handle the candidate soldiers and teach them some of the basic military skills.

Another thing that was made possible because of this course was the establishment of good relationship between us, the new second lieutenants, platoon leaders, and the most junior officers who are assigned here in 9^th Infantry (Spear) Division. At least for about two months, we had already known everyone whom we will be working with someday and we created no barriers.

This is not an after activity review of our PLC but a sort of informative article that would inform everyone what have PLC made us and how much the same PLC will help the future generations of officers whenever they will report to this division or even to any other units of the Philippine Army. My classmates in this course who are now deployed in the different battalions of this division would be applying everything that they have learned and are very much ready to face the threats we are facing. We will make sure that we would reach the peak of our commanders’ expectations. We would be the cutting edge of the accomplishments of this division in support to the ISO mission.