Our week was shattered by the news about a 22-year old first year Law Student who was hazed to death by his "comrades."I don't know why law students are always the targets of fraternities. Law means justice. Is there justice in using hazing for initiating the entry of members?
What is just about paddling a neophyte, slapping his or her face, boxing their bodies, burning their legs with cigarette butts, and all kinds of horrific violent acts that are not at all just, and makes the perpetrators just plain outlaws.
Beyond the violent scenes lies a definition that the perpetrators adhere to: to be a man is to be able to face pain without squirming, to withstand aches and sores without complaining, to not give way to soft feelings of vulnerabilities.
The macho in other words.
Alas, after our having catapulted a woman president to power, and another one, illegally, we are still beset by backward definitions of manhood. Why so?
Actually, the family could define first of all what a man is. If the mother is always a yes woman to the father, you can be sure that the children will have a truncated definition of manhood and ladyhood. If there is equality in the home, or if the woman resists domination by the man, then you can be sure to raise male and female daughters who know the value of democratic practices at home.
In the larger Philippines society, not much talk or discussion is done about equality. You can glean this from the billboards that proliferate in the streets. At the Welcome, you always see this woman in bathing suit, her legs spread out and sunbathing. Is that a welcome picture of a woman? It is an invitation to relax and have sex afterwards.
Then along Edsa, see how the women are dressed scantily, or have that look of inviting you to be alone with her. It is rather sickening riding the MRT because these billboards are so huge you cannot simply close your eyes to them.
At UP school, women's studies has been bracketed under the College of Social Work and Community Development, as if only the students there need a hammering of equality subjects. Instead of making gender studies as a universal general education subject, the university has bracketed it to be the purview of the College alone. How much more is this case happening in other schools? Is there a talk at all of gender in other schools?
Hence that hazing victim is a product of an environment that blurred his vision of what it means to be a lawyer -- to belong to an organization, no matter how rotten the procedures are in becoming its member. But why connote college work to being involved in such organizations?
I think there is a mesmerizing effect of belonging to that organization. Such organizations as in all other schools emphasize that the members' clout in society is so strong that one has to have a need to belong to them, in order to exercise power in society.
That is the problem. Our society does not build up people who will believe in their capacities to effect change in life, except if one belongs to an organization. Not many mavericks are bred in our society. (an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party)
That is very sad because mavericks could be so independent that they could initiate changes in society that no organization could even think about.
Instead of encouraging exclusive boys or girls organizations, schools should provide for opportunities for the students to go to laboratories and make discoveries that no other has done. It should provide for an environment that allows the students to go to visit Mother Nature, commune with her and write about new ideas or creative stories and poems that could enhance humanity and spiritual life. It should encourage writing, music, art organizations and other cultural groups, allowing girls and boys to direct their own cultural shows.
Fraternities with violent tendencies would wither away once the students realize that developing themselves as individuals while in school is the best option instead of joining them.
Besides, the harm on the mind and body due to initiation could take a long time to heal and so could make the individuals live with that blot in their memories.
The fact that the initiation is done in secluded areas means that something is awry, not just in the way it will be done. Frats and sororities do that -- keep their "welcoming rites" under lock and key.
I remember one initiation that happened in a house one time. I could not understand it yet at that time what it was but I heard the girls crying in one room. Then after it was over, I saw a big paddle emerge being held by a master. I was not shocked then. I did not feel anything. I thought there was a rehearsal or something.
I think such kinds of initiation should really be blotted out of our societies. it is a type of human activity that makes the perpetrators look sinister, evil. And what will it do to hurt, to main an applicant in that manner?
The irony of it all is that after the initiation, the perpetrators would embrace the victim of sadism, as if nothing had happened. Is that possible? I think that is the height of hypocrisy and no academe should ever accept that to exist in any form in the school or university nor even outside. The submissive character of the students who undergo initiation with violence is not in keeping with what the educational institution is supposed to teach the students.
Hence, I suggest that fraternities and sororities should be banned outright. Only cultural and political organizations that orient the students to the finer things in life, and that initiate them to be responsible members of our society should exist.
Also, schools must have a program on "after school, what?" This should teach the students that outside of the academe, whether they finish or not, they could exist. And so, the subjects under this should make them feel whole beings, not crying for help. It should teach them to navigate life, whether as professionals, as entrepreneurs, as political advocates, etcetera. By being equipped with that knowledge, then they would not easily fall prey to the false sense of belonging that those organizations use.
I may be stepping on the toes of some people I know who are members of such organizations but I hope they would understand that there has to be a humane way to lead our lives, one that would enhance our being, and not be trapped in artificial relationships, and which has resulted in death in the above case.
May the soul of Horacio Castillo, victim of hazing, find eternal peace and love in the arms of the Almighty 
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