Only halfway into the first semester of the school year, and we’re slapped with yet another senseless death of a student due to hazing.
Police investigations have confirmed the suspicions of many: Cris Anthony Mendez’ death was caused by severe beating—that is, hazing. Like many college students, 20-year old Mendez, a Public Administration senior at the University of the Philippines, sought to join a fraternity to look for brotherhood. Like many before him, he found death.
It’s the simple, recurring story of a young man plainly wanting to belong to a brotherhood. A brotherhood for which he’s only too willing to do anything; yes, even the disreputable initiation rites which nobody desiring to be a fraternity member never went through. It’s the baptism of fire; the ultimate test of one’s worthiness to the brotherhood. Many are fortunate and proud to have surpassed the test. But like the countless incidents we’ve heard of in the past, the initiation seemed to get out of hand, and the next thing you know, we have another Dennis Venturina and Niño Calinao (the latter, though wasn’t an aspiring fraternity member, got killed by two notorious fraternities’ feud.) Another promising iskolar ng bayan gone dead even before he finishes his course as an iskolar.
I personally cannot imagine how devastatingly painful Mendez’ death is to his family and friends. But I am as bewildered as they are in making sense of this tradition of brutality and violence.
Is brotherhood characterized by how supposedly educated, intelligent, and refined members of society conspire and assent to keep and uphold this brutal tradition of hazing? Is brotherhood defined by the number of paddles you whack against the thighs of a fraternity aspirant? Is brotherhood celebrated by the barbaric, ungentlemanly, and un-brotherly act of violence?
Does an aspirant's worthiness to be a member of the "brotherhood" determined and measured by how many blows he can take without actually dying?
Fraternity takes its roots from the Latin word fraternitas, which means ‘brotherly’. In our time, it is a term that’s defined by love as much as by blood relation. You love your brother, protect your brother, care for your brother. You do not accidentally kill him by beating him.
Why do fraternities call their organization fraternities and yet we have senselessly killed people like Venturina, Calinao, and now Cris Mendez? Because they celebrate and uphold brotherhood? What freaking brotherhood?
