LINGAYEN, Pangasinan ? A lawmaker admitted he survived hazing at two institutions, including the Philippine Military Academy, when he urged Congress last week to review counterhazing and countertorture laws, as well as leadership and morale training programs of the police and the military.

Pangasinan Representative Leopoldo Bataoil, a retired police director, had expressed dismay at how hazing persists to this day despite the enactment of laws like the one against hazing (Republic Act No. 8049).

In calling for the laws? review, Bataoil said in a privilege speech on August 24 that he was prompted by the death of a University of Makati student, which was attributed to hazing, and the videotaped torture of a suspected holdup man by a Manila policeman.
Bataoil, a member of PMA ?Magilas? Class of 1976, offered two accounts of hazing in his speech, first as a cadet of the Philippine Merchant Marines Academy and again in the PMA.

His first account took place at the PMMA, when as a probationary cadet at 16, senior cadets brought him out of his barracks one night.

?I found myself in the middle of several upperclassmen in circular formation, some of them armed with various implements, some with bare hands. I survived the so-called initiation. But ? as if that was not enough ? an upperclassman whacked me during a morning formation [when cadets were made to fall in line]. Then the next thing I knew, I was brought to the hospital where I was treated for a fractured rib,? he said.

While at the hospital bed, his father came to ?bring the good news that I passed the PMA cadetship program.?

Bataoil said: ?When [my father] saw me in bandages, he was heartbroken, as it was his dream for me to follow in the footsteps of his older brother, the late Lieutenant Leopoldo Bataoil, a member of PMA Class 1943 who died in Bataan during the war. His body was never recovered.?

The lawmaker was named after his fallen uncle.

As a fourth-class cadet at PMA, Bataoil said he spent sleepless nights fulfilling the directives of upperclassmen, as well as memorizing their full names, addresses, blood types. The upperclassmen also required him to remember the names of their dogs and even their girlfriends, he said.

?When I failed to recite all these things, I was required to memorize poems and speeches the following day, like ?Beyond Forgetting? by Rolando Carbonell. When I failed to memorize and recite the poem or comply with the other orders, trouble began. Either I received a quick whacking or [I was] ordered to do endless numbers of exercises like a million pushups ...? he said.

?Of course, those are almost impossible [tasks],? he said.