In the ordinary order of things, sons are supposed to bury their fathers. If what happens is the other way around, the pain and grief is difficult to bear. Sometimes the pain never goes away.
The members of the Aegis Juris fraternity who conducted the initiation rites that killed young Horacio “Atio” Castillo III did not have to kill the young man. But they did. Atio paid the ultimate price simply by wanting to belong to a group which he thought was an exemplary organization. Yet, when he was fighting for his life, the people who inflicted grievous harm to him treated him horribly—one wonders, what sort of values does this Aegis Juris fraternity have.
What did Shakespeare say of these kinds of people? Cowards die a thousand times before their deaths. These people cannot even face up to what they did. They were cowardly.
Why, we might ask, did Horacio not simply quit when the initiation rites was becoming brutal and unbearable? Maybe he was ashamed to be branded a quitter if he gives up. We will be able to find this out when the investigation goes deeper or when those six people named by John Paolo Solano in his sworn statement who were present during the initiation rites begin to sing in order to save their own skin.
We will also be able to find out if Atio Castillo could have survived if those six fraternity members acted promptly and brought him to the University of Santo Tomas hospital, which was very near, instead of bringing him to the Chinese General Hospital, which was very far.
During the initial Senate hearing, the answers of the University representative, the sister sorority fraternity and the law school dean were pathetic to say the least. I was surprised why the senators simply allowed them to get away with their evasive answers and not ask deeper questions.
The university representative said that the fraternity was not registered for the school year 2017-2018 suggesting that as far as the school is concerned, the fraternity is illegal. Was this supposed to be an excuse for the school not to have supervised the initiation rites?
The sorority representative on the other hand, when asked whether there were sorority members present during the initiation rites, said was none.
And the Dean? What did he say? He also said that he did not know about it and gave instruction that there should be no hazing during the final initiation rites.
This is plain and simple hogwash. Why? Because there is no one in this world who will not equate membership in a fraternity to initiation rites. Initiation is always part of becoming a member of a fraternity. The only question to ask is what type is conducted. A group —be it a fraternity, sorority or military academies like the Philippine Military Academy—needs something that can bind members together. This may be shared hardships and experiences during the whole period of training or initiation rites. For PMA cadets, the period is one year.
If one can go through that, then all the classmates will be “mistahs” forever.
We have heard and seen some hazing deaths of fourth class cadets from PMA and these were handled differently.
How? For instance a first year cadet dies in the hands of senior cadets, the person who pays the price of dismissal is usually the last cadet who handled or touched the plebe. This is basically the last-touch doctrine so to speak but we have not seen cadets dying because of hazing for a long time. We can only assume that brutal hazing in the PMA have already been done away with.
University fraternities are of course a different matter. The rite of passage in order to be called a “brod” is to undergo initiation which really does not take very long. Certainly not one full year as in the PMA. Often, neophytes perform harmless orders but sometimes, the rites become deadly as in the case of Horacio Castillo III and other victims before him.
In spite of R.A 8409 popularly known as the anti-hazing law, we still see young men dying senselessly as a result of fraternity hazing rites. We cannot seem or simply refuse to learn our lessons. Dean Nilo Divina being a member of the fraternity himself should have known this and supervised the initiation rites more closely. Simply allowing those senior members of the fraternity to conduct the initiation rites themselves was a recipe for disaster as it is now proving to be so.
Fortunately, we have Police Chief Superintendent Joel Napoleon Coronel of the Manila Police District handling the investigation. He is an experienced investigator and if anyone can get to the bottom of all these, he can.
There is now a clamor to amend R.A 8409 and ban hazing altogether. This is of course no consolation to the parents of Horacio III but let us hope that his death will be the last because of hazing.
Horacio Castillo III simply wanted to belong to a fraternity whose senior members ended up killing him. What an irony because judging from the way those members acted and behaved when confronted by an emergency situation like saving Atio’s life, they behaved shamelessly. What sort of a fraternity is that? Garbage is what it is.
For those responsible for Atio’s death, let us also hope that when they are identified tried and convicted of murder, they will spend their long years in prison thinking of what they did to Atio including their own lives which they wasted.