UP fratman wages campaign against campus violence

(First of two parts)

Talk to him about the joy of freedom and Raymund Narag, 27, knows whereof he speaks. After all, only last Feb. 28, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court acquitted him and four of his frat mates in the Scintilla Juris fraternity of killing in a barbaric attack fellow UP student and Sigma Rhoan Dennis Venturina in an outbreak of campus violence in 1994.

A few hours after Branch 219 Judge Jose Catral Mendoza handed down the acquittal, Narag, an honor graduate of the UP National Center for Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG), walked out of the Quezon City Jail, which had been his home for nearly seven years, a free man.

But Judge Mendoza found five other Scintillans guilty of murdering Venturina, who, like Narag, was then a graduating public administration honor student; the judge sentenced them to a jail term of between 20 to 40 years under the penalty of reclusion perpetua. Narag had a strong alibi – at that time, he was on an errand for the UP’s Center for Integrative and Development Studies where he was a student assistant, mailing important documents through a private courier service at SM City on North Avenue on orders of his superior, Prof. Miriam Ferrer.

Perhaps, many ways the wiser is a phrase that fails to fully describe what his ordeal behind bars made out of him.

What is certain is that the fraternity man is now embarking on a personal mission – yes, a crusade – to spread a gospel of non-violence in campus. In fact, the day he was released from jail, he paid the judge a visit in his chambers to thank him and to tell him of his newfound cause.

Yet he said he did feel some bitterness over his ordeal in jail. "I felt like my life stopped for seven years. I was then all set to take up law when I was implicated in the case," he said. "I lost many opportunities in those seven years I spent in jail."

He said his girlfriend Shiella broke up with him five months before the ruling that acquitted him was handed down. "We haven’t talked since then. I wish I could talk to her."

He was also saddened by the fact that when he got out of jail, five of his frat mates replaced him. Their lawyers have just filed a motion asking Judge Mendoza to reconsider his decision. He said for him, the question of who were behind the attack on Venturina was settled on the day it happened. "I wasn’t there, I didn’t know what happened," he said. "What I know is that the people who are now in jail weren’t there too."

"It is this bitterness that I now use to drive me to share my experience with others," he said, adding that when he returned to his hometown in Tuguegarao for the first time as a freeman, the whole town welcomed him like a long lost son. Teachers asked him to give talks to students about the evils of fraternity violence. "I was surprised to know that even there, students, as early as in high school, become involved in fraternity violence," he said.

Narag was supposed to have been awarded cum laude honors when he was graduated in 1995 but because he had been implicated in the murder of another public administration student, the college academic committee decided to withhold the award until he is acquitted in court of the charge.

This time, he hopes to receive the award. On the advice of UP President Francisco Nemenzo Jr., he is writing the University Council to allow the NCPAG to confer on him the honor during the graduation rites this April.