A Manila court on Tuesday found ten members of the University of Santo Tomas’ Aegis Juris fraternity guilty of violations of the anti-hazing law. First year law student Horacio Castillo III died as a direct result of hazing in September 2017.
The 22-year-old was brought by another student to the hospital but he was declared dead on arrival. According to the autopsy, Castillo’s death was caused by severe blunt traumatic injuries from paddle blows he received during the rites, even as the accused tried to get the charges dropped by saying Castillo had a pre-existing heart ailment.
The ten fraternity members, also would-have-been lawyers, were sentenced to reclusion perpetua, or 20 to 40 years in prison.
As a result of Castillo’s death, the anti-hazing law was passed in 2018, which mandates an outright ban on, not just regulation of, all forms of hazing.
The law has an extensive definition of hazing: “any act that results in physical or psychological suffering, harm, or injury inflicted on a recruit, neophyte, applicant, or member as part of an initiation rite or practice made as a prerequisite for admission or a requirement for continuing membership in a fraternity, sorority, or organization including, but not limited to, paddling, whipping, beating, branding, forced calisthenics, exposure to the weather, forced consumption of any food, liquor, beverage, drug or other substance, or any brutal treatment or forced physical activity which is likely to adversely affect the physical and psychological health of such recruit, neophyte, applicant, or member. This shall also include any activity, intentionally made or otherwise, by one person alone or acting with others, that tends to humiliate or embarrass, degrade, abse, or endanger, by requiring a recruit, neophyte, applicant, or member to do mental, silly, or foolish tasks.”
And now the parents of Castillo are demanding accountability from the university, which they said failed to protect their son. The Castillos said it was about time heads rolled at UST, but the law school dean, Nilo Divina – recently found guilty of misconduct and impropriety by the Supreme Court on an unrelated case — denied the university was negligent.
Castillo’s death gave rise to the amendment of a 1995 law, but the amended Republic Act 11053 still does not guarantee the elimination of hazing. Just this week, a Grade 11 student in Jaen, Nueva Ecija, Ren Joseph Bayan, died at the hands of suspected fraternity members in the community.
Stringent law notwithstanding, what would ensure that no more young lives would be snuffed out because of the wrong notion that belongingness and brotherhood has to come at a steep price?
Schools have the duty and responsibility to impress upon their students that violence is never justified, especially if it comes under the guise of friendship. Meetings and initial stages of recruitment take place in their premises. Despite protestations, there is accountability by institutions whose mandate it is to help mold young people’s minds and values.
Communities are more difficult to pin down, but grassroots officials also have to be in the know about groups in their area preying on vulnerable and impressionable youth.
The conviction sends a clear message to those who become drunk with the power they hold over their peers. In the brashness of youth they might forget what should be simple and obvious: true brotherhood does neither harm nor ill on another. It is up to the rest of us to make sure they know this at all times.
