Hazing must be fought
THE news regarding the latest event of hazing at the Philippine Military Academy ( PMA) is disappointing and dismaying. Actually, it is more like aggravating and outrageous. There have been egregious instances of hazing in this institution before and after the scandal and irrevocably negative consequences, but it seems no one learned any lessons. And as they say, those who do not learn from past mistakes are bound to repeat them almost with a multiplier effect. Already, we have the Philippine National Police Academy copycatting hazing, and with their own horrible results to show. And let us not forget law schools and other academic institutions that have been known to have it, with equally horrible outcomes.
Naturally, heads had to roll. How come with the instances of hazing in the past, and their negative consequences, the PMA authorities were not more alert and vigilant, and devised preventive measures against it? While the barbarism would naturally have to be hidden, its consequences, signs, clues, victims are visible enough. Complacency and lax management are at work here.
One also wonders about the PMA’s so-called hospital whose medical personnel can’t seem to recognize internal injuries until one dies of them. Who, when presented with a victim of hazing, just send him back after an overnight stay as though it was a headache treated and gone. Is this incompetence or a cover-up?
Considering that hazing is maltreatment of fellow human beings who are in a subordinate rank to those who abuse them, should we tolerate these goings-on using taxpayers’ money? Is it not logical that getting away with bullying others can become a way of life and contaminate the ranks of our military and police so as to make them violent against their countrymen? What kind of society will emerge from this violence and bullying?
If this keeps on, this country must look for other options for training its military. Send them to military academies elsewhere where they can be more civilized, if there are such places that do not tolerate abuse. Abolishing these military and police schools in their present state should bring the possibility of a fresh start under more enlightened and informed military education leaders. Granted, this is an extreme solution but it should be on the table if our military education leaders prove helpless to stop the barbarism. The truth is if this barbarism continues, it will expand to military and police abuses beyond these institutions that no state can tolerate or live with.
Another tool should be making candidates for entry into police and military academies take psychological exams to get inkling into their personality. Perhaps, in this way, candidates prone to abuse and bully can be winnowed out. Soldiers and police do not just need raw intelligence and physical prowess; they need healthy mental attitudes to be correct and effective in the implementation of their duties.
A serious inclusion in the curriculum of the liberal arts might give a dose of philosophy, ethics
As for the current military and police officers now proudly saying that they are such successes because they underwent hazing, I will say they just proved they are not quite the success stories they claim to be in their own minds. Indeed, ignorance and braggadocio are not admirable traits, which is what they show in these statements.
We already have an epidemic of bullying in schools in this country, which should be addressed. The new Magsaysay Awardee from South Korea who has advocated resistance against bullying through ways he learned after his son was killed by bullies, should be consulted.
All in all, heads should roll, hazing perpetrators should have the book of the Anti-Hazing Law thrown at them and military educators and the government itself should think of how to seriously address the problem and/or look for options, whether drastic in the short term, for arriving at a long- term solution.
Otherwise, we descend to barbarism if our military and police abuse us as they are now abusing some of their own.