Time for an outright ban on hazing

TBy HE practice of hazing by law school fraternities is cruel and barbaric, and belongs in the Dark Ages. It is shocking by itself but more so when its perpetrators are students of the law, who should know that they are not only violating several laws of the land; they are showing their utter lack of reason and humanity.

Hazing by school fraternities, sororities, and other organizations should be stopped now before another young person dies while undergoing these sadistic initiation rituals.

The current anti-hazing law is weak – it has too many loopholes that fraternities can exploit and with which complicit schools can hide under.

Horacio “Atio” Castillo III, a 22-yearold law student of the University of Santo Tomas, died at the hands of his “brothers” in the Aegis Juris fraternity. They pummeled his arms until the blood vessels burst, dripped hot candle wax over his body, hit his thighs with wooden paddles until he collapsed in pain. He reportedly died with the fifth strike of the paddle.

The details of Castillo’s death in the early hours of September 17 were revealed by a Aegis Juris member who was present at the hazing, Mark Ventura. His decision to tell – all to the Department of Justice was unprecedented as fraternity members usually subscribe to a code of silence similar to the Omerta followed by the Mafia.

Ventura has been accepted into the government’s witness protection program. Charges of murder, robbery, perjury, obtruction of justice, and violation of the anti-hazing law have been filed against 37 people, including the 10 fraternity members who took turns beating Castillo with wooden paddles inside the Aegis Juris library in Laong Laan, Sampaloc.

At this point, we can expect that members of Aegis Juris, including its alumni, will use all their legal wiles to extricate their arraigned brothers from these serious charges. The diversion and misdirection has already started with one of the suspects John Paul Solano claiming that Castillo did not die from hazing but from a pre-existing heart condition.

Horacio’s parents, Carmina and Horacio Castillo II were aghast at this claim of Solano. They said their son was an athlete who played soccer in school. “What led to my son’s death was blunt trauma coming from the hazing that caused extreme pain and suffering,” said Mr. Castillo. They also questioned why Solano, a medical technologist, was making these claims when he is not a cardiologist.

The fraternity members are also asking the DOJ to exclude from the criminal complaint filed against them the pieces of evidence gathered by the police at the fraternity library, alleging that they were illegally obtained because of a defective search warrant. The DOJ should quickly quash all these diversionary tactics.

While the DOJ does its part to seek justice for Atio Castillo, the Senate should also do its job to ensure that brutal incidents like this will never happen again. It should repeal Republic Act No. 8049, which by its very name says it is only “regulating” hazing and other forms of initiation rites.

Section 2 of the law states that no hazing rites shall be allowed “without prior written notice to the school authorities or head of organization.” So this means that hazing can be done if so authorized? This is not an anti-hazing law – it’s prohazing with a myriad of penalties thrown in to cover up its weak regulatory and enforcement statutes.

R.A. 8049 is clearly a cop-out law that was drafted and passed to appease the public following the death of Atenean Leonardo “Lenny” Villa in 1991 after hazing rites by the Aquila Legis fraternity. The court initially convicted 26 Aquila Legis members of homicide but this was reversed later by the Court of Appeals.

Due to the legal maneuverings of their lawyers, all those involved in the death of Lenny Villa were acquitted, finished their law degree, and are now practicising law in government and in the private sector. Will the Senate allow Atio Castillo to become just another Lenny Villa, forgotten after the public outcry has abated?

There have been 23 fraternity-related deaths since RA 8049 was signed in 1995, and only one conviction, in the case of University of the Philippines-Los Baños student and Alpha Phi Omega initiate Marlon Villanueva. Two members of the APO fraternity were sentenced to reclusion perpetua in 2015, nine years after the hazing death of Villanueva.

The Senate needs to craft a new law that will ban outright hazing in fraternities and other school organizations. Students of law and those already in the legal profession should start speaking out now against hazing, otherwise they are all complicit in this abhorrent practice.