‘Probe death of PMA cadet’

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered outgoing Armed Forces chief Gen. Angelo Reyes yesterday to investigate the death of Fourth Class Cadet Edward Domingo of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) in an apparent hazing incident last Saturday night.

Saying she was "shocked and saddened" by Domingo’s death, Mrs. Arroyo also asked Reyes, who incidentally gave his farewell speech before the PMA that fateful day, to verify whether the "malpractice of hazing has not stopped" at the academy.

"I want maltreatment, hazing and all other forms of illegal punishment be stopped at once in the academy," she said.

The incident took place as the President is set to address the PMA commencement exercises this month.

Maj. Gen. Manuel Carranza Jr., PMA superintendent, said Domingo was a victim of the illegal "celebration" practice staged immediately after cadets find out they have passed their academic subjects.

Before midnight Saturday, four yearlings or sophomores fetched Domingo from his room on the second floor and brought him to theirs (Room 322).

There, four upperclassmen struck Domingo with a three-foot long lead water pipe on the buttocks and boxed him on the chest. Carranza said the fatal blow could have been on the solar plexus, or the network of nerves behind the stomach.

Carranza said Domingo had hematoma in his heart’s right ventricle and lungs. "Nag-blood clot ’yung puso which led to shortness of breath which, in turn, led to cardiac arrest," he said.

Domingo’s attackers were identified as Third Class Cadets John Louie Ong, Michael Berang, Willard Aperocho and Omar Julius Labajo, now all under detention. The last two were his former classmates because he had to repeat his freshman subjects due to academic deficiencies (he belonged to Class 2004).

Domingo’s mother, Leoning, a widow who still supports four younger children, said she learned of his death when PMA people fetched her from Camiling, Tarlac last Sunday, and brought her to the morgue of the PMA Station Hospital.

Mother and son last communicated on March 2 when Edward called up to greet her on her birthday and relay news that he passed his academic subjects.

His father, who retired as a first lieutenant of the Army, died after the younger Domingo passed the PMA entrance exams.