Makati police name top hazing suspects

The Makati City police on Thursday said they had obtained the names of the prime suspects in the death of alleged fraternity hazing victim Guillo Cesar Servando, based on statements taken from one of his three injured fellow neophytes who phoned a police hotline from a condo unit in Manila in a failed effort to save his life Saturday night.

The suspects include Cody Errol Morales, 22, said to be the Lord GT (Grand Triskelion) of the Tau Gamma Phi chapter at De La Salle-College of St. Benilde (DLS-CSB); Pope Bautista, the frat secretary; and a man known only as “Emeng,” the master initiator or one supposedly in charge of enforcing rules during initiation rites.

SPO1 Nilo Sadsad, the case investigator, said the names were provided by John Paul Raval, the owner of the condominium unit at One Archer’s Place on Taft Avenue, where he, Servando and two other recruits from DLS-CSB were brought after undergoing initiation at a house in Barangay Palanan, Makati.

Five other Tau Gamma Phi frat men were identified only by their nicknames, which Sadsad said could be mere aliases:  Navoa, Rey Jay, Mike, Kurt and Louie.

Sadsad said the Makati police had asked Benilde officials to help in the investigation by providing pertinent information on the fraternity members.

But the school, he said, declined. “They want us to get a court order before they could provide us details about the students,” Sadsad told the Inquirer in an interview.

Names on logbook

Earlier, when the case was still being handled by the Manila police, two names cropped up: Trex Garcia and Hans Tamaring. These names were written on One Archer’s security logbook by the two men who brought the four neophytes to the condo on the night of June 28.

Sadsad said the list given by Raval appears to support the statement given by Jomar Pajarito, another frat member and caretaker of the house in Palanan owned by Merlyn Venus, which the Makati police and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) cordoned off as a crime scene Wednesday.

Quoting Pajarito, Sadsad said Morales approached the caretaker early Saturday afternoon and asked if the back portion of the compound could be used for a “chapter meeting.”

After saying yes to Morales, Pajarito left the house along with his family. When he returned around 6 p.m., he saw Morales hitting one of the neophytes with a wooden paddle.

Harassed into joining

Interviewed by the police while still confined at Makati Medical Center, Raval said he was recruited by two frat members at Benilde but that he was actually “harassed” into joining.

As per Raval’s account, the initiation rites started at 6 p.m. and lasted about three hours, during which the neophytes were hit on their legs by the fraternity members using belts and a wooden paddle.

The Makati police said they are still checking reports that three females were also present during the initiation.

Makati crime scene investigators on Wednesday retrieved six empty plastic bottles and two cigarette butts from the yard of the house for fingerprint processing and possibly for DNA examination.

Servando’s father, Aurelio, went to the Makati police headquarters Thursday to monitor the turnover of the case and the pieces of evidence. In an interview, he said he was happy with the investigation so far but that it was still “quite slow for a father of a child who was killed.”

Father’s fears

“I fear that some of the suspects might have already flown out of the country or gone into hiding,” Aurelio told reporters.

The elder Servando said the top leaders of Tau Gamma Phi, who earlier said they would conduct their own internal probe, had yet to approach him to offer help in the investigation.

His family is willing to talk to them “when they are ready,” Aurelio said.

Aurelio later joined an NBI team that searched the house in Palanan.

There were no paddles or wooden bars found in any of the rooms, according to Joey Tuvera, head of the NBI’s Death and Investigation Division.

A drum set, which nearby residents heard being played on the night of the hazing, apparently to drown out the sound of the beatings, was found in one of the rooms, Tuvera noted.