Solon seeks to mandate role of schools vs hazing
DAVAO CITY—The author of a bill seeking a tougher campaign against hazing expressed confidence that his proposed measure, if passed, would give more teeth to the existing antihazing law, as it requires the involvement of schools in preventing all forms of violence during initiation rites.
“Let’s make the schools accountable,” Valenzuela City Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian said in an interview here about his House Bill No. 4714, which seeks amendments to Republic Act No. 8049, or the antihazing law.
Under Gatchalian’s bill, schools would take part in monitoring and regulating fraternities, and in banning hazing.
Gatchalian named his proposed measure the Servando Bill after the latest hazing fatality, Guillo Cesar Servando, a student of De La Salle University-College of St. Benilde in Manila, who was killed on June 28 after being beaten up during the hazing rites of the Tau Gamma Phi fraternity.
Gatchalian said that to be successful, the campaign against hazing should require the active involvement of schools and communities.
He said most schools and universities had existing bans on hazing but hazing persisted because fraternities continued to do it underground and outside school premises.
“The existing law only regulates and doesn’t actually ban hazing,” Gatchalian said.
“Now, we propose an outright ban. We have to explicitly ban hazing in all its forms,” he said.
The killing of Servando has angered many prominent individuals in Bacolod City, where Servando hails from.
Negros Occidental Gov. Alfredo Maranon has called for a total ban on fraternities following Servando’s killing.
“What kind of brotherhood is that when they hurt their own brothers?” Maranon said.
Bacolod Rep. Evelio Leonardia called the death of the 18-year-old “shocking and senseless.”
“So many of these cases have shaken us before but this time it is personal to us in Bacolod,” Leonardia said
Servando’s father, Aurelio Cesar, is a businessmen based in Bacolod City. Aurelio Cesar said his son had wanted to back out of the initiation rites but the other members of the fraternity refused to let him go.
Aurelio Cesar said he hoped that the people behind his son’s killing would be brought to justice soon. Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao, with a report from Carla P. Gomez, Inquirer Visayas
