School fraternities: purveyors of murders

The nation should join the parents of Horacio Castillo III in condemning hazing, violent initiation rites, and in calling for the prohibition of the purposeless killings of innocent neophytes. These fraternities have no social relevance. They are completely anti-life, anti-peace and do not perform any useful social functions. They are nothing but glamorized gangs of scions of the rich and elite in the academic communities. They proliferate only because the deans and the college secretaries and many of the faculties are also fraternity members who unabashedly exercise their conflict-of-interests positions. These school officials should be ousted because their continued stewardship of the colleges project an impression that they are there to protect and give undue advantages to their own brothers and sisters.

These fraternities and sororities are just there to pursue selfish objectives and to provide a forum for mutual protection of their members. Their activities include drinking, using drugs, sex sessions, and now killing sessions disguised as initiation rites. They act like glamorized thugs in the campus who figure in rumbles with rival fraternities. These groups should be disbanded and outlawed, as an exception to the freedom of association because of public interest. Fraternity officers and their faculty advisers and deans who are also members of the same groups should all be charged with murder and should not be allowed to post bail. The whole country should express a collective outrage and denounce these mindless purveyors of death and violence.

There is no justification whatsoever to allow these murderous gangs to proliferate, allowing them to do so would be to tolerate grave and imminent danger to our sons and daughters. School officials should also be held liable for allowing these violent gangs to thrive in schools. They cannot escape liability by alleging they have taken a leave of absence from the fraternity or are inactive. They think all Filipinos are stupid. They refuse to answer questions during senate investigations on grounds they might incriminate themselves. The truth is that they are merely being loyal to their Code of Silence, a blatant obstruction of justice.

How can victims expect cooperation from the university and the college of law, when the dean and the college secretary are both members of the same fraternity involved in the killing of Castillo? This guy Solano, who is now allegedly being considered a suspect and may soon be an accused, refused to tell the senate inquiry who were the members of their fraternity who participated in the hazing, and who rode in the two vehicles that brought the body of Castillo to the Chinese General Hospital. No one among the frat members who attended the senate hearing broke the Code of Silence. Such cavalier attitude indicates the pattern to cover-up and obstruct the administration of justice. The nation should stand up as one in resisting such disrespect of the law. There should be speedy, flawless, and fair justice for Castillo. Let the axe of justice fall on whoever is guilty. No ifs, no buts.