As of yesterday, police had arrested and filed criminal charges against six fraternity members suspected to have beaten to death John Matthew Salilig in a twisted concept ofbrotherhood. Salilig, a chemical engineering student at the Adamson University, met his death when he tried to join the Tau Gamma Phi fraternity.
As narrated to probers by another neophyte who survived the hazing, they were brought to a house in Biñan, Laguna where at least 14 fraternity members took turns beating the two with a wooden paddle on Feb. 18. Probers said the orgy of violence did not stop even when Salilig vomited.
He was being taken back to Manila by fraternity members in a sport utility vehicle when he went into seizure. Instead of salvaging their humanity and rushing the injured to a hospital, the suspects hemmed and hawed, waiting for a miracle that did not happen. They decided to bury their victim in a shallow grave, surely not out of respect for the dead but for the cowardly killers to hide the corpus delicti.
Yesterday charges of violating Republic Act 11053, the Anti-Hazing Act of 2018, were filed against Tung Cheng Teng, Earl Anthony Romero, Jerome Balot, Sandro Victorino, Michael Lambert Ritalde and Mark Pedrosa. Gregorio Cruz, father of one of the suspects and owner of the SUV, also faces a complaint for obstruction of justice, for refusing to turn over the vehicle to police.
You wonder what sort of upbringing produces young monsters, and what reckless stupidity makes them overlook the existence of a law that prohibits hazing and other violent, abusive and degrading initiation rites, and imposes tough penalties.
Perhaps there lies the problem: a perception that the law is being selectively applied, and that it is possible to get away with beating a helpless youth to death. No matter how savage the act, those with the right connections in politics and the legal profession where fraternities exert undue influence still manage to get themselves cleared, and resume normal lives.
The country has seen this since the hazing death of Leonardo “Lenny” Villa in February 1991 at the hands of members of the Aquila Legis fraternity in Ateneo de Manila University, wherein several of the defendants not only were cleared but managed to become lawyers. Perhaps University of Santo Tomas law student Horacio Castillo, who died in 2017 in a hazing conducted by the Aegis Juris fraternity, will not suffer the same injustice.
As in any crime, the uncertainty of punishment encourages impunity and guarantees a repeat. The impunity has been such that even sororities and medical school organizations have engaged in violent initiation rites. The violence creates lifetime scars. Pray that the next hazing victim will not be your child.