The Rainbow Ranger Alumni Association, Inc. (RRAAI) with its fraternal society, the Katipunan ng Mga Anak ng Bayang (KMAB) Pilipinas, Inc. is all set to celebrate its 54th Founding Day Homecoming event hosted by Class LYNX’77 on September 17, 2022, Saturday, from 1 pm to 6pm, at the JOMAG’s Function Hall in UPDMST Complex, Diliman, Quezon City.
Invited as its Guest of Honor and Speaker is PBGen ELMO DG SAN DIEGO (Ret.) PhD, a Rainbow-Anahaw Ranger Alumnus and the current Quezon City Head of the Department of Public Order and Safety (QCDPOS). PBGen San Diego will be speaking on the event’s theme of “Moving On A United Tomorrow for the Rainbow Rangers”.
The Rainbow Rangers originated from the Sunday Soldier Training Project of the UP Vanguard Fraternity alumni and the UPROTC Cadet Officers volunteering on the Scout Ranger-Unconventional Warfare (SR-UW) Course conceptualized by then Army Captain (later Brigadier General) BENJAMIN R VALLEJO (deceased) on September 15, 1968.
In August 1970, the Sunday Soldier Training Project expanded to other ROTC Units and became known as the AFP Rainbow Ranger Home Defense Program with volunteers coming from 26 or so colleges and universities in Metro Manila, Laguna and Davao. It grew from a Battalion to a full Division-size Ready Mobilizable Unit until its deactivation in the mid-‘80s with the retirement of then MCMTC Commanding General, BGen Vallejo.
The Advanced ROTC graduates of the Rainbow Ranger Program were then inducted into its civic arm and fraternal society, the KMAB—whose first initiation into the CREDO Ritual was then witnessed by the last Flag Officer of the “Katipunan ng Mga Alagad ni Bonifacio”, Don Pablo De Jesus Tan-Gatue, who dubbed the graduates as the “Second Generation Alagad ni Bonifacio”. Since 1970, its graduates performed the CREDO Ritual of Filial Piety, Honor, Valor, Humility, and Tradition, shedding blood for God, Country, and People.
In the years of its activation and onwards, many of its graduates have given their time, talent and treasure in molding leaders and in excelling themselves in their chosen fields of profession and career in the military, police and government services, in politics and the academe, in private practices, business and corporate world, and in the Reserve Component of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Auxiliary Services of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCGA).
As a Volunteer and Selective Program, the Rainbow Ranger Project is a novel approach to Citizenship Training and Reservist Force Development—incorporated and fused together into one cohesive activity with training of volunteers from Basic and Advanced ROTC Programs and on Scout Ranger, Unconventional Warfare and Home Defense Operations for Fidelity to Country and People, and for the Reservist NCOs and Commissioned Officers serving as Training Cadre of the Program, credited as “Sunday Soldiers” on Weekly Active Duty Training (WADT) status—truly model Citizen Soldiers.
In many ways, the RAINBOW RANGER PROJECT has proven that the emergence of a volunteer Civic Military Force is feasible even on austere conditions of budgetary and service support. Its success relied mainly in the spirit of its participants—the Citizen Volunteers.
For more details on the 54th Founding Day Homecoming Event, contact the RRAAI-KMAB Secretariat at 0998-967-0810 or email at kmab.rraai@gmail.com
