Pimentel: Schools should tighten regulations on frat activities

MANILA, Philippines — Fraternity violence would continue to persist in schools if these educational institutions would not tighten their regulations and monitoring of the activities of these so-called brotherhood and sisterhood groups, according to Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III.

Pimentel said colleges and universities should employ "vise-like" regulatory policies to ensure that deaths arising from initiation and welcome rites such as that of a 22-year-old law student of the University of Santo Tomas would not happen again.

"It's been more than twenty years since the Anti-Hazing Law was enacted in 1995, but the recent death of UST law student Horacio Castillo III shows us that the law itself has failed to fully deter frat members from committing acts of physical violence against neophytes," Pimentel lamented.

The Senate president said schools should launch a crackdown on fraternities and sororities which failed to comply with the requirements of the law.

Pimentel said that schools should recognize sororities and fraternities, but they should also ensure that these organizations comply with the country's Anti-Hazing Law or Republic Act 8049 as a precondition for their recognition.

For example, RA 8047 allows the conduct of so-called initiation rites but only if the group provided the school with a written notice seven days before the activity, according to Pimentel.

In addition, the law also requires the presence to two representatives of the school during the welcome rites to ensure no violence will be inflicted on their neophyte members, he said.

"University and college officials should recognize fraternities and similar organizations so they can be subject to regulation. They should then be extremely strict about requiring fraternities to submit a list of their officers and members, as well as their activities for the semester or school year," he said, adding that a faculty adviser should also be named to monitor the groups' activities.

He said that disqualified fraternities and sororities and their members should be sanctioned should they continue their activities and recruitment on campus without proper authorization from the institution's officials.

Calls to amend RA 8047 have snowballed following the death of Horacio Castillo III in violent hazing rites in the library of the Aegis Juris fraternity near UST.

According to the university, Aegis Juris, which counts among its members UST Dean Nilo Divina, is not a recognized organization in the Faculty of Civil Law this year.

A subcommittee of the House of Representatives has recently approved a bill that seeks to replace RA 8047 and ban and criminalize hazing, according to Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy, the proposed measure's author.