Speed up passage of anti-hazing act, Gatchalian urges senators

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian has urged his fellow senators to push for the swift passage of the Anti-Hazing Act of 2018 to prevent a repeat of fraternity rites that recently led to the death of university students Horacio Castillo and Guillo Servando.

“I urge the esteemed members of this chamber to rally behind the swift passage of Senate Bill No. 1662, so that no more blood will be shed in the pursuit of brotherhood,” Gatchalian said in a statement on Friday.

The bill, according to Gatchalian, would “close glaring loopholes” in the 23-year-old Anti-Hazing Law, which lawmakers uncovered during the Senate probe on Castillo’s death at the hands of the Aegis Juris Fraternity.

Gatchalian recalled that the House of Representatives had passed the proposed anti-hazing measure-–House Bill No. 5760, informally known as the Servando Act-–on third and final reading in 2015.

But the bill was not approved by the Senate until the 16th Congress came to a close in June 2016.

Now that the House passed the proposed amendments to the Anti-Hazing Law of 1995 (Republic Act No. 8049), Gatchalian said “the ball is once again in the Senate’s court.”

He noted the importance of provisions in the Senate bill that “establish clear-cut responsibilities and liabilities of educational institutions in preventing and policing hazing” and “severely punish resident and alumni members of fraternities who would dare attempt to frustrate the ends of justice by covering up the hazing crimes committed by their brothers.”

“This bill changes the central paradigm of the law—-instead of regulating hazing, it will completely prohibit all forms of hazing, once and for all,” he said.