UP frat case hounds med student in UE

It’s becoming an interschool concern.

The accusing party in the criminal cases arising from the June 18 fraternity-related violence on the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman campus has asked another university to expel one of its medical students, a UP alumnus, who allegedly figured in the incident.

Five members of the Alpha Sigma fraternity and their lawyer sent an 18-page complaint on Tuesday to the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center (UERMMMC) to demand the expulsion of Rudolf Gene Karlo Neral, one of the five suspects.

The letter was addressed to Dean Alfaretta Luisa Reyes of UERMMMC College of Medicine. It was signed by UP Diliman students and Alpha Sigma members Jesus Blas

Vitangcol, Joevie de la Cruz, Mario Andrefanio Santos II, Jorge Eustaquio and Ernesto Luis Martino Pangalangan III; and their lawyer Amado Danilo Tayag.

It identified Neral as a UP alumnus who is now a second-year medical student at

UERMMMC on Aurora Boulevard, Quezon City.

According to the complainants, Neral violated his current school’s own rules on student conduct and discipline. “(We) are disturbed and pained by reports that respondent

Neral continues to attend his classes at [UERMMMC] after his release from detention, as if nothing happened or as if it is business as usual for him,” they said, adding:

“His actions are not minor offenses but are grave criminal acts and constitute gross misconduct. Neral and his coassailants carried deadly weapons… and used masks to conceal their identities. They used motor vehicles with switched plates to escape liability for their criminal acts. Respondent Neral’s offenses clearly show that he is no longer fit to remain within the ranks of

UERMMMC’s medical students.”

Expulsion, they said, is the punishment for “gross misconduct or dishonesty, and such offenses as hazing, carrying deadly weapons, immorality, drunkenness, vandalism, hooliganism.”

The other four suspects, UP students and Upsilon Sigma Phi members Cheran Cabrito, Rannie Mercado, Sean Rodriguez and Elias Miles Villanueva, have been placed on preventive suspension by the UP administration, which has launched its own investigation into the incident.

Neral was tagged as one of the five masked men behind the second of two attacks targeting Alpha Sigma members on UP campus on the afternoon of June 18. They were arrested later that day and managed to post bail after six days in detention.

On July 23, Judge Charito Gonzales of QC Regional Trial Court Branch 80 partially granted a defense motion and ordered the complaints— for frustrated murder and illegal possession of firearms—referred back to the city prosecutor’s office for preliminary investigation.

Alex Avisado, the lawyer representing the Upsilon members in court, shrugged off Tuesday’s complaint and said that Neral’s own lawyer, Wilfredo Garrido, had also dismissed it as a mere “harassment suit.”

“(Neral) enjoys the presumption of innocence,” Avisado said in a phone interview. “The preliminary investigation is ongoing and the court proceedings have been suspended. There’s a possibility that the complaints may even be dismissed.”