Another life wasted in its seach for brotherhood. Again, the Tau Gamma Phi fraternity is involved. It barely created ripples in the news. The miasma of John Salilig's hazing death still hovering. But I'm certain there have been the rituals of condolences and grieving, ephemeral altars and candle lightings, anger and outcries for "No hazing" policies and, of course, for "laws with more teeth." In time, like always, the noise will die down, the brutality and senselessness will fade from public consciousness. . . until the next hazing death. . . except for the parents and love ones of Mr. Aldryn Bravante. (November 2023)

On every occasion of a hazing death, there are the rituals of condolences and grieving, a few days of media attention, platitudes and bromides on the senselessness of the death, parroting of same speeches on how to strengthen the law, and too often, the question, how to add more teeth to it.

Teeth? How many more teeth does the law need? The law imposes the penalty of reclusion perpetua (life imprisonment) and a fine of two to three million pesos for participants, planners, advisers, etcetera for people involved in the conduct of hazing, and, to boot, reclusion temporal (up to 17 years and 4 months) and one million pesos for all persons present in the "conduct of hazing".

This is the 12th death since 2018, when Republic Act No. 11053 or the Anti-Hazing Act of 2018 amended RA 8049, which imposes harsher penalties for hazing rites resulting in death, rape, sodomy and mutilation, and penalties on individuals who try to cover up hazing activities.

Since 2018 and 12 deaths since, how many have been sentenced to reclusion perpetua and reclusion temporal. How many tens of millions of pesos have been paid by hazing participants?

It is obvious the law has failed to provide deterrence to hazing violence and deaths. While grieving parents beg for justice, while the guilty flee and scamper to sanctuaries and hiding places, while academia read their worn messages of condolences and condemnations, while candles are being lit and flowers being laid on collegiate altars, the lawmakers clamor for a law with more 'teeth'.

Teeth. . . teeth. . . teeth.  The law does not lack in teeth. The law is far from toothless. The law is good and clear: reclusion perpetua or reclusion temporal and a fine in millions. The law should put the bejesus of fear into fraternities, hazers, and universities. But it has not.  Hazers have continued to whack their paddles away, undeterred, unconcerned with the law, oblivious to the eventuality of another death. And death when it occurs is almost always not caused by a single, death-defining blow. Death is the consequence of cumulative trauma. . . blood on everyone's hand. . . a communal participation in a killing. And, perhaps, that is the crux of the problem. . . the dilution of guilt.

Teeth? What lacks teeth is the implementation of the law. What good is the law without enforcement? What we need are men and women with political will, with political balls, with the intestinal fortitude to buck the usual mechanisms of Philippines politics: areglo and lagayan, quid pro quo, political indebtedness and promises, and ultimatums from the powers that be. Otherwise, the law will continue to be impotent, limp and ineffectual, unable to effect deterrence, deliver justice.

Universities and colleges must share in guilt of hazing deaths. Alas, invariably, after their generic recitations of condolences and condemnations of a senseless death, hollow outrage and shameful attempts of cover-ups, all they get is a slap on the academic wrist, assured that with tincture of time the death with be forgotten or swept under the rug.

Academe should be fined not a pittance of a million or two, but with 20, 30, 50 million or more, to fund anti-hazing programs and education. All participants should be summarily expelled, along with all those who tried to cover up the hazing death.

I once argued against the abolishment of fraternities. I felt it served a noble purpose, a human need. But it has long ago ceased to be a congregation for intellectual pursuit and expression, which was its original intent. Now, the mettle to endure the violence and sadism of hazing has become the essential admission ritual. Perhaps, it is even time to rethink the abolishment of fraternities and sororities.

Otherwise, the killings will continue. It has been fifty-five deaths since the death count started; fourteen since the amended 8049 with its harsher penalties.

Teeth? No. Political will and balls, yes.

It is a human condition -- the need to belong to a family, group, tribe, club, organization, or community. Some seek the allure and exclusivity of some brotherhoods or sisterhoods -- fraternities and sororities, street gangs, military units, secret societies -- for that special sense of belonging, kinship, and bonding, and for the promise that membership in a special community of men or women will provide a lifelong cachet, to reap imagined privileges, reassurances, and advantages later on in life. In return, one accepts the ethos of a brotherhood or sisterhood, subservience to a set of ideals, and commitment to a code of silence.

For that fraternity, men and women are willing to suffer through the hazing rituals of physical and psychological abuse, sometimes a combination of extreme and heavy doses of both -- being smeared with feces or urinated on, drinking concoctions of bodily discharges, suffering torrents of degrading insults, demeaning sexual acts and nudity, or various acts and varying degrees of physical violence. They are meant to humble the pledges, and from that humbling, they imagine, springs bonding, love, and trust.

The consequences of psychological abuse are often hidden. But sometimes, after the hazing, beneath the seeming normalcy, there is a lifetime of psychological scars or wounds that never heal.

For physical abuse, the marks are often visible, usually inflicted by the most common form of abuse in the tradition of hazing -- paddling. it's much worse than it sounds, and it's much more than a paddle. It has become the generic word for any instrument that inflicts corporeal punishment: paddle boards, canes, baseball bats. The damage is often inflicted with brutality, almost always, causing the body to "ube" -- the vernacular for the early violet of bloody ecchymotic bruising. Often, the extent of subcutaneous bleeding, the hematomas and ecchymoses -- the ube -- is the arithmetic equivalence of the degree of brutality. The ability to endure the brutality is considered a measure of mettle, resolve, and worthiness.

Often, the violence is meted out with measures of restraint. But one too many times, it is dispensed with savage and unrestrained brutality, with pledges beaten to a pulp. And sometimes, in the name of fraternity, death occurs.

The deaths are not accidents
In between deaths, the hazing continues as the fraternity's rite of passage, outside the range of media attention, the non-fatal hospitalizations becoming ho-hum incidents. It is the occasional death that brings hazing's brutality and senselessness to the forefront, with its short-lived torrent of outrage, a rain of media sound bites, and the emollient doses of press releases from schools with generic statements of condolence and condemnation. While the parents grieve, seeking answers and seeking justice. While the guilty flee and scurry for cover, behind the shroud of silence and secrecy. While the wheels of justice, too often hampered by who-you-know and areglo politics, moves so slowly, sometimes looks the other way. Waiting for the senseless death to slowly recede from public outrage, front pages and editorials. . . until the next death.

The deaths are no accidents. They are just deaths waiting to happen. Deaths are the result of cumulative trauma. There is no way to determine the sustainable amount of physical violence beyond which a line is crossed. It is even possible the cause of death may have been inflicted early on in the ritual of hazing, taking days for the process of its pathology to progress to death.

What is surprising is that there aren't more of these tragic events. How many deaths are unreported? How many more deaths were a whack of paddle or dose of torture away? The human body's fragile armor is a mere composite of delicate tissues of skin, subcutaneous fat, muscle and nerves, prone to tears and bleeding, surviving through innate reflexes -- withdrawal, shielding, parrying, cringing, flinching, flight and avoidance. This fragility, long ago recognized by science and medicine, spawned an industry that fashioned protective gear for contact sports and various professions, to protect every part of the human body with helmets, pads, goggles, guards, vests, and shields, with medical personnel ready to sideline anyone with a bleed, cut, sprain or concussion. In hazing, which takes in more violence than any contact spor,
there is no such protective gear.

Also, there may be unrecognized contributing conditions that critically increases this fragility: aspirin intake, bleeding and clotting disorders. And in the bloodsport of hazing, the survival instincts and reflexes are not functional. The human body becomes a stationary mass of unprotected tissues, absorbing the infliction of repeated blunt trauma, each strike contributing to the cumulative physical damage -- the subcutaneous bleeding, the widening ube, sometimes, hemorrhagic shock, coma, and the occasional death. (How many times has the ube, the post-traumatic ecchymotic swelling in the legs, been source of deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and death?) And sadly, too often, the body succumbs before the resolve yields. And often, when death occurs, it is not sudden. The dying is slow. Life already seeping away as the strikes continue. There is not one fatal blow. The fatal blow is cumulative . . . and communal. Life was slipping away, bleeding away, long before the final blow.

Whence, the brutality?
This is not the initiation of street or prison gangs, where excessive violence is generic and deaths are meted with dispassion. This is the violence of hazing inflicted upon pledges with bodies unfamiliar with the extremes of physical abuse, walking wide-eyed into a gauntlet of hazing rituals, suffering the blows, risking life while hoping for the grail of acceptance and cause of fraternity.

Of course, not all involved in hazing are violently inclined. Perhaps, many are nonviolent in their day-to-day lives. Yet many, not disposed to violence, in the company and peer pressure of brothers become hesitant participants, contributing small doses of violence; or sometimes even with the seemingly gentle, with the outflowing and surging of adrenaline and testosterone, a line is crossed, the ritual goes haywire, the hazing becomes an occasion of wilding and sadism.

Some would like to believe that the violence is simply a get-back from brothers still feeling the pains of last year's initiation rites, the ube long gone but the memory of it still stinging, and now keyed up to be on the giving end.  

Perhaps, for a few. But for many, it's likely much more than that. Among the initiating brothers, there might be one, two, or a few possessed of violent nature, inflicting pain with great delight, amusement and laughter. Perhaps there's even a sociopath or two hiding behind the mask of academe. Perhaps, these brothers were themselves bullied upon or were victims of childhood physical abuse, now finding a subconscious mode of release and transference. In my medical practice, patients, both victims and perpetrators, have confessed to me of domestic abuse, how difficult it is, once it starts, to stop the horrible escalation of violence. Why would it be different In the rituals of initiation, in the setting of helpless pledges, with brothers, many stewed with alcohol, armed with clenched fists, paddles, sticks, pipes and canes? Who are swinging their bats in the name of brotherhood? Who are swinging from the scars of childhood abuse? Who are striking in anger, revenge, jealousy, retribution, redemption, or simply, for that feeling of macho-ness as they inflict punishment? Dahil sa ingit, galit, bawi, o tupak? Hazing is a match that provides spark to a cauldron of human dysfunctions.

To boot, we have become a more violent society. We live in a chilling new paradigm of violence. There has been a resetting of our thresholds for evil and violence, a shift in the Jekyl and Hyde of our personalities. There is always blame to cast on movies and television satiating our swollen appetites with excessive doses of graphic violence. The past decades have brought us wilding, road rage, Columbine, gone-postal incidents, waterboarding, new ways of tortures, and massacres in far-flung corners of the world -- daily doses and daily fares in the immediacy of television that inundate the visuals of our daily lives. The images no longer shock. We have become desensitized, hopelessly inured to violence.

In hazing, this culture of violence is allowed expression, testing the limits of endurance, taking lives to the edge, a few strikes away from the threshold of dying. A blood clot in the leg. Blood loss. An errant heart beat. Sometimes, strike after strike after strike, in sheer exhaustion or when the limit is reached, the body shuts down. The death is often the result of cumulative trauma. For every death, there are many who were so close to their deaths, surviving by the skin of one's teeth. In hazing's venue of violence, the occasional death—when it occurs—is not accidental, but, rather, predictable, that sooner or later, the occasion of a death will be an inevitable outcome.

How many deaths were a whack of paddle or dose of torture away?

Fraternities need not be banned.
Every time a death occurs, part of the hue-and-cry is to ban, dissolve, or prohibit fraternities, and the question inevitably raised: Do fraternities have a place in society?

Outlawing fraternities will do nothing but drive them underground. Besides, fraternities provide for various human needs -- a surrogate family, a place for young men and women to forge friendships, bonding, and trust, a milieu of kindred spirits, a place to experience community. It is the hazing that is the unnecessary ritual, and the deaths from it so senseless.

Hazing wasn't part of the Greek and medieval origins of fraternities. Hazing took roots in that period of change when the ancient rituals and classic traditions of intellectual explorations and expressions were disappearing. Now, what remains in some (most?) fraternities are the Greek letters, symbols and crests, hedonistic extracurricular pursuits, and its annual ritual of hazing. And in a world inured to a culture of violence, hazing has morphed into more physical methods of initiation, increasingly violent, with deaths as occasional, predictable and inevitable outcomes.

Hazing is the fraternity's murderous thorn on its side. Many organizations, schools and universities have banned it, but to no avail. The deaths continue. In 1995, the anti-hazing law, Republic Act No. 8049, was approved by President F. Ramos. The law is impressively replete with definitions, liabilities and penalties -- reclusion perpetua, reclusion temporal, prison mayor, prison correcional. Yet, it has woefully failed to stop the beatings and deaths. And in the theater of the courts, the guilty have always managed to skillfully mitigate culpability through avenues of twisted legalese, loopholes, and appeals.

It's a law that lacks teeth, rife with flaws. It allows hazing or initiation rites with ridiculous conditions that seem to not recognize the potential for violence: That prior notice is given seven (7) days before, that it must not exceed three (3) days, that no physical violence be employed, that two school or fraternity representatives be present.

And alcohol? It is ubiquitous in our celebratorygatherings. Certainly so, in initiation rituals. It shouldn't take much to imagine how much of the violence is fueled by alcohol. And despite the fact that 82% of deaths from violent hazing involve alcohol, the law makes absolutely no reference to alcohol.

Hazing is a blood sport, a ritual of power and control wielded with violence. The street gangs, cults and the underworld may never be rid of it, but schools and universities should be saved from it. The youth should be protected from the psychological and physical violence. It is inane and insane to expect that promulgation by law can regulate, supervise, and temper the violence. Hazing in all its forms should be punished with expulsion. Deaths should be dealt with for the heinous crime that it is, by a law with teeth, unencumbered by legal loopholes, politics, and brod-blood, utang ng loob, and quid pro quo and areglo machinations.

Manslaughter
Justice Secretary de Lima expressed puzzlement when Judge Perla Cabrera-Faller dismissed the charge for violation of the Anti-Hazing Law in the hazing death of San Beda law student Marc Andrei Marcos for "lack of probable cause and ample evidence." Of course, nothing followed her puzzlement. Incredulously, the judge exculpated: "No one is to be blamed for the death of Andrei Marcos… The court feels that it could suffer the flak of society, but it cannot in conscience consign all of the accused to the dust bin of history simply on the basis of the uncorroborated and incredible lone statement of Marcelo."

The history of hazing is littered with deaths. Despite the deaths and known risks, fraternities continue with their conspiratorial regimens of torture. Despite having been criminalized by Republic Act 8049 more than a decade ago, the deaths continue. Despite "zero-tolerance" edicts and sound bites, when hazing season comes around, schools and universities turn a blind eye, waiting for the next death—when it becomes the occasion for the usual public outcry, the predictable condemnation by school and university authorities and offerings of condolence and "unqualified grief" to the victim's families

Every hazing death clamors for justice. Hazing deaths qualify as manslaughter. At the least, involuntary manslaughter. But in the Andrei Marcos case, the judge found lack of probable cause and ample evidence! No one to be blamed!

Guillo Servando's death awaits the ruling of justice; as the hue and cry recedes, while we hope the decision does not end up consigned to the same "dustbin of history."

Non-Violent Alternatives Hazing can be replaced by non-violent alternatives that measure the mettle, worth, and resolve of the pledges. For the able-bodied pledges, have them walk to Baguio, planting trees along the way. Spend their weekends and a whole stretch of summer in volunteer work. Take to the boondocks, like the teachers who walk their arduous miles and wade through rivers daily to reach small communities of children hungry to learn how to read and write. Provide community service to the countless riles communities. Clean the garbage and refuse that clog up the tributaries of the Pasig river. There are limitless opportunities waiting to be invented for a fraternal Peace Corps of pledges. And instead of the twisted glamor of initiation violence, let the pledges prove their worth and mettle with a new kind of macho-ness, through deeds that boast of sacrifice, social relevance, and doses of nobility. . . . and in the end, to redefine and return to the laudable possibilities of fraternity.

Image sources
• Photo Collage: (1) Ohio Law Protects Hazed Students (2) Youth tied to a post (3) Man tied to a chair (4) Youth tied and doused with water (5) Hazing (6) Hospital scene