Brotherhood we can never understand

As I did some years back, I agree with fellow Inquirer columnist Ma. Ceres Doyo that victims of hazing had it coming to them.

They knew they were entering a lions’ den.

As a father, I sympathize with the parents of the latest hazing victim, Guillo Cesar Servando of De La Salle University–College of St. Benilde, who died due to severe beating he suffered allegedly at the hands of Tau Gamma Phi frat men.

Guillo and the other hazing victims could have told their tormentors, “Enough! I quit!,” before more serious harm was inflicted on them.

But he didn’t, and so his future “brods”—supposed to be his  campus protectors and his future benefactors when he gets outs of college—went on with their sadistic acts.

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Call college fraternity neophytes masochists and their “masters” or elders sadists, but suffering pain and being subjected to indignities are   part of the  initiation rites.

The frat masters were also once neophytes. They suffered the same pain and humiliation they now inflict on the newcomers.

So banning fraternity hazing is like prohibiting hazing at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).

Several deaths in frat initiation rites have been attributed to hazing.

Some frat men who took part in hazing deaths, like those in the case of Ateneo student Lenny Villa, have been convicted by the courts.

But have we counted how many PMA plebes have died due to hazing since the premier military school was founded in the early part of the 20th century?

And yet not one of the PMA senior cadets who had a hand in the hazing of plebes that caused severe injuries  has gone to jail.

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Even if Guillo survived the hazing and became an invalid for life, do you think he would have squealed on the people who inflicted harm on him?

Chances are he wouldn’t.

My  first cousin, Aleksie “Boyex” Aguirre, was beaten up so severely at the PMA as a plebe he was hospitalized.

Because of his injuries, he had to take a leave and never went back.                 But he  never told on his torturers.

That’s how brotherhood is all about, which outsiders like you and I  will never understand.

* * *

I admire Miriam Defensor-Santiago  all the more because she faces Stage 4 cancer with equanimity and a sense of humor.

“Everyone has to go sometime,” she said,  quoting her 91-year-old mother when she broke the news.

“Sometime” may be sooner than later for some of us.

When our mission on earth is finished, we go back to our real home, the World of the Spirits, where love is everywhere and everyone suffers no pain.