From September 2022 to October this year, the Philippines suffered four fatalities from fraternity hazing. The victims were young men taking up courses that would define their career paths and lives in the immediate future. They had high dreams and solid plans for themselves and their families, for their spouses and kids yet to come. But all these were snuffed out in just one or two nights of fraternity frenzy which they ironically call initiation to “brotherhood.”
Allow us to disclose the list and weep. Augusto Caezar Saplot of University of Mindanao in Davao City died on Sept. 18, 2022. Ronnel Baguio of University of Cebu in Cebu City died just before Christmas on Dec. 19, 2022. John Matthew Salilig of Adamson University in Manila expired on Feb. 18, 2023. The latest victim was Ahldryn Lery Bravante, a 25-year-old student of the Philippine College of Criminology also in Manila.
‘As things stand now, Bravante will not be the last man to die from hazing, as other young minds may be enticed to join these harbingers of death.’
A medico-legal report revealed the cause of Bravante’s death was severe blunt trauma to both lower extremities. Bravante was put to death by 60 hard blows to the head and body using a wooden banca paddle, wielded by his “brothers” who also used the boy’s body as an ashtray. Bravante also suffered multiple injuries on his neck, arms and shoulder. There were also cigarette burns on his chest and hands.
Every time there is a brutal death through hazing, whether in university or community fraternities or any branch of the uniformed service, the issues of culture of violence and impunity come to the fore. Lawmakers, along with top officials from the executive department, are heard in chorus denouncing the practice and its perpetrators. Soon, the public outrage dies down and fraternities are back to their usual business, along with the schools that give them roof. Another hazing death will again stoke the fire of concern and rage, unleashing rhetoric of condemnation from many sectors, only to be forgotten anew.
Junior frat members who survive hazing and other indignities soon become senior members and leaders of the group, and necessarily would want to give the same brutal treatment to the new recruits. Again, completing the cyclical pattern of impunity.
It is interesting to note that in the two latest cases, both Salilig and Bravante were victims of brutal and inhuman initiation rites of the Tau Gamma Phi, a fraternity which is active both in universities and communities. Tau Gamma is reportedly also behind the deadly hazing of Ariel Inofre in Quezon in October 2014, and of Guillo Cesar Servando of the De La Salle-College of St. Benilde in Manila in June 2018.
Another celebrated hazing death, that of Horacio Castillo III, then a freshman law student at the University of Santo Tomas, led to a long legal battle and the triumph of justice as Castillo’s killers are now imprisoned and serving their sentences. Castillo was beaten to death by members of the Aegis Juris fraternity in 2017. His death, although sad and revolting, became the catalyst for the passage of Republic Act 11053 or the Anti-Hazing Act of 2018 which added teeth to an earlier anti-hazing law.
Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri led his colleagues in the Senate in calling for justice for the deaths of Bravante and Salilig, and this call has prompted the Quezon City Police Department to arrest four of the suspects and run after nine more.
Zubiri, who worked for the passage of the anti-hazing law condemned the “barbaric fraternity tradition (that) is not only enraging but also frustrating as it happened despite our efforts to put more teeth to the law against fraternity hazing.”
As things stand now, Bravante will not be the last man to die from hazing, as other young minds may be enticed to join these harbingers of death. No amount of pressure from legislation will break the cyclical culture of violence. What we need is education, discipline and a resolve by our youths to keep away from groups that are out to harm or kill them.