• DECEMBER 2000. Mark Welson Chua and fellow cadet Romulo Yumul, sophomores from the Faculty of Engineering, resign as ROTC officers and file complaints of bribery and extortion against the UST Department of Military Science and Tactics with the Department of National Defense (DND). They allege that students are made to pay questionable fees while some other students are exempted from the course after paying P1,500 per semester.
• FEBRUARY 21, 2001. The Varsitarian publishes a Special Reports article about Chua’s and Yumul’s complaints. Major Demy Tejares, commandant of UST-ROTC, is dismissed by the DND after an exhaustive investigation.
• MARCH 18, 2001. Chua’s body is found floating on Pasig River, his hands and feet hogtied with shoelaces, his head wrapped with cloth and duct tape, and his whole body wrapped in a carpet. Autopsy shows he died of asphyxia or suffocation.
• MAY 25, 2001. The University Belt Consortium adopts a statement drafted by UST titled “The ROTC: Excising a Cancer.” The statement calls for the abolition of ROTC.
• JANUARY 23, 2002. Republic Act 9163, also known as the National Service Training Program Act of 2001, makes ROTC optional. It allows students to take up Civic Welfare and Training Service and Literacy Training Service instead of ROTC.
• APRIL 2004. Arnulfo Aparri, Jr., an Architecture student at the time of Chua’s death and one of the four UST-ROTC cadet officers implicated in the killing of Chua, is sentenced to death by the Manila Regional Trial Court.
• NOVEMBER 2005. Eduardo Tabrilla, another cadet officer implicated in the killing, is caught in Dasmariñas, Cavite. Two more cadet officers implicated are still at large: Michael Reinard Manangbao and Paul Joseph Tan. Jamaila S. Cahilig
