Tau denies involvement in recent frat skirmishes

After a long silence, the Tau Gamma Phi hierarchy has come out to deny involvement in the recent fraternity skirmishes involving its group and rival Alpha Kappa Rho.

This developed as Tau Gamma's Mitchell Flores called on Akrho to stop dropping names of Tau Gamma members in the midst of their trouble and instead let the police do their work.

Flores asked Akrho not to bring the conflict to the alumni level because there might be bigger trouble when this happens, as they would readily make use of its international connection.

"There will be trouble g'yud. It's not a threat but we just want to let the message come across. Stop finger pointing, let the police do their work and bring it to the proper courts," Flores said in a statement to The Freeman.

A shooting incident involving Tau Gamma alumni SPO1 Mateo Pascual and John Perez in Consolacion town in June triggered a meeting between all officers of the organization in Manila last week.

According to Flores, there have been a lot of fraternity skirmishes in the past, but they kept mum because they wanted the authorities to solve the problem.

However, because of the incident implicating Pascual and Perez, Flores stressed the organization has to come out and make a stand because they believe both alumni are innocent.

With this, Tau Gamma also called on the police to look into fraternity cases "with outmost fairness and equity so that true justice can be served."

It also questioned why Akrho members, during their anniversary on August 8, carried a newspaper that published the story on the death of its member in Gun-ob, Lapu-Lapu City and made a thumb's down sign as if boasting that they were responsible for it.

Flores said William Anlocotan was just an ordinary member and that his death stemmed from a personal grudge.

Flores, meanwhile, stressed that they have nothing to do with the shooting incident along Ramos Street on August 8 that killed a chapter president of Akrho.

Flores pointed out that initial investigation revealed the victim provoked two pedestrians who were crossing the street, resulting in a melee. He said it does not make sense that because the victim was a member of Akrho, his death would be directly blamed to them.

He also said that two of their members - Christopher Pastorfide and Dino Arriesgado - should not be directly implicated in the killing of an inactive member of Akrho in barangay Sambag 1.

According to Flores, Arriesgado and Pastorfide were just pinpointed by witnesses who belonged to the rival fraternity.

He said the stand of the organization on erring members is just to keep silent, and to just let the authorities pursue them for the sake of justice and fairness.

"Our message to Akrho (members) is that they should think of their actions individually and not act upon impulse or to whatever the organization is leading them. This, so as not to waste their talent and energy of their youth or literally losing their lives and the lives of their family," Flores ended.

In his reaction, Akrho regional president Richard Buscaino told The Freeman that it was not their intention to implicate the Tau Gamma alumni members because the case was a personal decision of the victim who was never influenced by the group.

"Hindi naman kami nag-finger pointing. Hindi namin kilala and there was no intention na idawit sila. Wala kaming kinalaman don, kasi busy kami sa mga community projects namin," Buscaino said.

He also denied that their members brought copies of The Freeman that headlined the story of the death of a Tau Gamma member.

On the Ramos incident, Buscaino said they never said it was a Tau Gamma member that was the suspect in the killing, as the police are pursuing a certain angle.

He said they have been trying to avoid more trouble by telling their members not to frequent places were there are members of the rival group.

He said they are now focusing on different community projects. - Ryan P. Borinaga