SERVANDO
Another suspect in the fatal hazing of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde student Guillo Cesar Servando has left the country.
The Department of Justice panel of prosecutors learned this on Wednesday during the continuation of the preliminary investigation into the case. Twenty suspects, mostly members of the Tau Gamma Phi fraternity, have been charged with violating the Anti-Hazing Law in connection with Servando’s death.
The 18-year-old sophomore who was taking up Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management died of injuries he sustained during initiation rites held in a house in Makati City on June 28.
Servando’s lawyers told the panel that Alyssa Valbuena, daughter of former Manila Councilor Erick Valbuena, left the country on July 10, the same day she and the other suspects were placed in the lookout list by the Department of Justice to allow immigration officials to alert authorities should any of them leave the country.
The lawyers submitted a copy of Bureau of Immigration records showing that five of the suspects, including Valbuena, had already left the country.
Aside from Valbuena, the others were John Kevin Navoa, Esmerson Calupas, Hans Killian Tatlonghari and Eleazar Pablico III.
Meanwhile, the panel has set on Aug. 28 the clarificatory hearing to be attended only by the other neophytes who also underwent hazing.
Valbuena’s father earlier denied reports that his daughter was the girlfriend of one of the suspects. He claimed that she just happened to be at the house in Makati City where the hazing rites took place because she was brought there by a girlfriend of one of the fratmen.