MANILA, Philippines—On Wednesday morning, Aurelio Cesar Servando appeared on television no longer sporting the scruffy look he used to don in previous interviews. Yet he carried the same burden he has had to deal with in the past few days—the pain of losing his son, Guillo Cesar Servando, allegedly due to hazing.
“I know you are in a better place, but we miss you like crazy. We love you very much,” said Aurelio in his interview on ANC’s Headstart, his voice breaking.
His son—Servs to his friends—was found dead on Saturday evening at the One Archers Place condominium in Taft Avenue, Manila. The second year Hotel, Restaurant, and Institution management student at the College of St. Benilde allegedly attended the hazing initiations of the Tau Gamma Phi fraternity.
Servs’s decision to join a fraternity surprised his family and friends.
“He had inclinations because he was a very brave boy, he wanted to join the PMA (Philippine Military Academy), but we prevented him because we knew that by joining PMA, there was a possibility of losing him early,” Aurelio said.
“In my son’s case, I got the picture that the people behind the Tau Gamma Phi, are well-heeled. They go around high-society in fancy cars with beautiful women in tow. My son was probably enticed by these. He wanted to level up his social life,” Aurelio said as he tried to make sense why his son joined a fraternity.
Classmates of 18 year old hazing victim Guillo Cesar Servando during wake at the National Shrine of the Divine Child in Dela Salle Green Hills Campus, Mandaluyong. Servando is a sophomore student Guillo Cesar Servando, a sophomore student taking up Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management in Dela Salle St. Benilde. RICHARD A. REYES/INQUIRER
“We were really surprised to know that he was joining (Tau Gamma Phi). Not one of us in the family is a fraternity member,” Servs’s grand uncle, who requested anonymity, told INQUIRER.net in a brief interview outside the National Shrine of the Divine Child at La Salle Green Hills (LSGH) Tuesday afternoon.
Quiet boy with dreams
Aurelio revealed that his 18-year-old son, who was into culinary arts and body building, dreamed of having his own fitness gym with a healthy restaurant on the side.
“He wanted to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger,” Aurelio said.
A friend of the victim, Dianne Riesgo, told INQUIRER.net that it was “unexpected” of Servs to join a fraternity.
”He’s pretty quiet. He does things to entertain people and make people laugh. He is kind. He’s a gentleman. Actually only little people knew, so you wouldn’t really expect that Servs would do something like that,” Riesgo said.
Riesgo said that even to his friends, Servs never mentioned to them his plans of joining their school’s Tau Gamma Phi chapter.
“(But) I think he’s doing it for a good intention. He’s not in it to (brag). He’s in it for the brotherhood. It’s painful,” she said.
Final hours alive
Riesgo said Servs spent his last morning with her.
“That morning, we were at school. We were fixing our papers for (South) Korea. We had an agreement that we would fix our papers together,” she recalled.
Aside from traveling as a requirement for school, Riesgo said Servs enjoyed traveling and learning about different cultures.
“I didn’t know that that night, he would go through hazing,” she said.
According to her, they parted ways during lunch time on Saturday.
Aurelio said that he would text his son all the time. On Saturday afternoon, Servs said to him that he was just in the La Salle area and that he was about to go home.
“I tried texting and calling him at 9:30 (pm), but he did not answer,” Aurelio said. “At that time I believe he was dead.”
On Tuesday afternoon, a suspect in the crime surrendered to the police. Aurelio appealed to the rest of the conspirators in the hazing rites to surrender.
“I would like to appeal to the 11 suspects to have a conscience in your heart to understand what I am going through and the parents of the other three survivors,” Aurelio said.
‘Barely coping’
Servs is set to be cremated in Quezon City at 2 p.m. Wednesday. Four days since his death, his family and friends are still “barely coping.”
“I just keep myself busy so I don’t break down,” Aurelio said.
For Servs’s friends, everyday life in school will never be the same.
“This time, it’s different. Wala na kaming makikitang malaking smile. Lagi po siyang nakangiti (We will no longer see his big smile. He was always smiling),” Riesgo said.
“Before he was with us in our conversations, now it’s he whom we talk about.”
Another friend and schoolmate, Keith So, told INQUIRER.net as he went out of the funeral chapel that they were “really shocked” about the incident.
So, who is taking up Information Studies at the Manila-based college, described Servando as someone who’s fun-loving.
“We are sad. But I know he doesn’t want us to be sad,” he said.
Despite the pain he feels with his son’s demise, Aurelio said he is determined to move on with his life.
“Maybe do some traveling, rest, come up with something meaningful so that his death will not be in vain,” Aurelio said.
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