Sunday, November 16, 2008
WRONGS OF PASSAGE
One of the more common sights in Manila are those of our young students beaming with youthful vitality, pride and promise; rightly so, for ahead of them are the best and exciting years of their life, with some seeking work/live opportunities in various distant lands. Indeed, a gripping future awaits these young folks.
However, there remains to this day, a dark aspect of student life that despite the perils involved -- its hazing rituals, primarily -- many are enticed to sign up due to the sense of community and belonging that such groups offer, including the promise of a vast network of peers who could help one another professionally after graduation. And despite the Philippine Hazing Law, violent inititation rites continue to be condoned and practiced by many local Greek letter societies or fraternities.
Cris Anthony Mendez died on August 27, 2007, following severe beatings by members of the Sigma Rho Fraternity at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. The beatings to his legs and chest were so severe that the 20-year-old was left with bruised lungs and huge bruises all over his body, according to the autopsy report.
Ramon Magsaysay Awardee and former Senate President Jovito Salonga has resigned as member of the Sigma Rho fraternity because of this incident. In a statement sent to the Inquirer, Salonga, one of the most prominent Sigma Rhoans, said that he was resigning “because of recent events in which Sigma Rho has been involved.”
Sigma Rho has been accused of two other fraternity-related violence: In December 1994, Dennis Venturina, a Sigma Rhoan, died in a riot between Scintilla Juris and Sigma Rho; whereas, on February 19, 1999, Niño Calinao, a senior journalism major was shot dead by suspected Sigma Rho members. He was mistaken for a member of the rival fraternity Scintilla Juris, which clashed with Sigma Rho members in a riot a week before the killing. Both incidents happened inside the University of the Philippines Diliman campus.
Prior to these incidents at UP Diliman, there was also the tragic fraternity-related case of 22-year-old first-year law student Leonard Villa of the Ateneo University back in 1991.
In joining the Aquila Legis Fraternity, Leonard Villa was allegedly subjected to a savage initiation rite in which he was kicked, mauled and beaten to death. His mother, Gerarda Villa, recalled the struggles her family went through just to prove that her son's killing was murder and not homicide.
Yet to date, she cannot get the judicial system to mete out punishment to those found guilty of having participated in her son's killing. Villa said they won the case in the lower court against 26 members of the Aquila Legis but it was overturned by the Court of Appeals. The case is now with the Supreme Court.
Through six decades, Aquila Legis fraternity has inducted over 1500 members, 90% of whom are members of the Philippine Bar and include Cabinet Secretaries, Congressmen, Justices, and Ambassadors. Its name comes from the Latin phrase meaning "Legal Eagle."
Since the death of her son, her late husband, Romulo Villa, a lawyer and once a BIR Commissioner during the Marcos era, founded Crusade Against Violence (CAV) in which she is now the current president. During her interview with the Inquirer, Villa said that they expected cover-up attempts in the Cris Mendez case.
It should be noted that although not everyone who goes through such ritualistic tests endures debilitating physical injuries, other forms of hazing, though subtler, can cause lingering emotional or psychological trauma -- such as being subjected to constant verbal abuse or sleep deprivations. In other cases, new members or rookies are ordered to wear humiliating attire, deprived of a regular schedule to maintain personal hygiene, or required to provide personal services to senior members (e.g. cooking, cleaning, carrying books, errands, etc.).
Hazing is often used as a method to promote group loyalty and camaraderie through shared suffering (male bonding in fraternities), either with fellow participants, past participants or both. A tentative explanation from evolutionary psychology is that grave hazing can condition the habituation and internalization of the psychological trait known as Stockholm syndrome in humans.
Stockholm Syndrome argues that blatantly brutal hazing can, in fact, produce negative results; making the units more prone to break, desert or mutiny than those without hazing traditions. This was observed in the Russian army in Chechnya, where units with the strongest traditions of dedovschina were the first to break and desert under enemy fire.
Regrettably, hazing has transcended the walls of our universities and some local high schools. It has become a societal problem, a way of life in certain elitist organizations and professions. Incidents of which occur in the military, police forces, athletic teams, marching bands, religious cults, professional schools and various clubs.
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I very much appreciate my articles and photos appearing on fellow bloggers' sites, popular broadsheets, and local broadcast news segments, but I would appreciate even more a request for permission first.
Thank you!
Labels: academe, fraternity, life in Manila
posted by Señor Enrique at 3:54 PM
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