Is the Hazing Law toothless?

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 CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Another one.

Monday, this week, another young college student, 20-year-old Cris Anthony Mendez died from the injuries believed inflicted on him during a fraternity hazing rite in Manila. The circumstances reported on the case are eerily familiar, because they are practically the same as in so many others before when the bodies of healthy, and intelligent young men had also been hurriedly delivered to hospitals and then abandoned by the very same people who had been instrumental in their deaths.

Cris Anthony Mendoza was a graduating student of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. He was not a mediocre student as he had just been elected to represent his college in the National College of Public Administration and Governance in the UP Student Council. Obviously he was one who had shown leadership qualities, and the fact that he had taken up Public Administration indicates that he must have had dreams about being in public service.

Now those dreams, as well as those of his parents, have disappeared and died with him. To his mother, who only learned about his fate through an anonymous phone call telling her to go to a memorial chapel, the years of sacrifice and support have also lost their meaning.

Who are the men who savagedly beat up and mortally harmed Cris Anthony Mendoza? There is strong reason to believe that they were the ones riding in three vehicles who shoved his lifeless body into the hospital and rushed away. It is fortunate that somebody had taken down the descriptions and the plate numbers of all the vehicles, but even then, the police have so far, not pinpointed or arrested any of the drivers or passengers of these vehicles.

Will the merciless and senseless killing of Cris Anthony ever be solved? Have we not passed a law against initiations providing the penalties for violations? Perhaps that law is too tame, perhaps officials of the schools where such groups with such wicked practices are allowed should themselves be held liable.*