Another hazing death

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor ERIC T. LORETIZO Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

On Friday afternoon last week, a young man was rushed to the Manila Sanitarium Hospital in Pasay City. It was too late, however. He was declared dead on arrival.

The young man was identified as Clark Anson Silverio, 18, a student of the Technological University of the Philippines. Police reports on his death said he had died of hematoma and severe contusions on his body.

The police have reason to believe that young Silverio was another victim of the inhuman tradition still observed by students of some colleges and universities known as initiation rites or, lately, as "hazing". The rites are supposed to precede the acceptance of a potential member into the exclusive group called a fraternity which is believed to give them privileges and connections that will enhance their status in their schools and enable them to avail of support and assistance to help them pass, not only their college subjects, but even board examinations. Not only that, some groups even claim that membership could earn a lifetime of friendships that they could rely on from fellow members in the brotherhood, which a fraternity is supposed to be about.

But what kind of brotherhood is it that would condone having one get beaten and bludgeoned to be accepted? And why are many of the country's schools still helpless to stop such brutalities among their students?

Everytime a fatal hazing case surfaces, we hear all kinds of condemnation and resolutions to put an end to it. And yet, we have again Clark Anson Silverio, a second year mechanical engineering student, turned into a corpse while trying to be accepted into a "brotherhood".

Is it only in the Philippines that fatal hazings still occur? We don't see or hear news about similar happenings in other countries these days. We have often mourned the deterioration of education in our country, but has it gotten to the point where our schools can not control, or do not try too hard to stop such primitive and beastly practices in their campuses?*