MANILA, Philippines — A fourth year student of the Philippine College of Criminology (PCCR) died from at least 60 blows to the body during initiation rites by suspected members of the Tau Gamma Phi fraternity, the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) said yesterday.
Probers obtained the pieces of information surrounding the death of 25-year-old Ahldryn Lery Bravante from two of the four suspects who are in police custody.
“More or less the victim received 60 paddle hits and the initiation rites lasted more or less two hours,” QCPD director Brig. Gen. Redrico Maranan said in a news briefing.
He did not identify who among the four suspects executed extrajudicial confessions in an attempt to become witnesses to the case.
The suspects claimed they threw the wooden paddle used during the hazing rites into a river. Maranan said probers are still verifying the claim.
Suspects Lexer Angelo Manarpies, Mark Leo Andales, Justine Artates and Kyle Michael de Castro are set to undergo inquest proceedings for violation of Republic Act 11053 or the anti-hazing law.
Maranan personally visited the PCCR’s campus in Manila wherein he received assurance from school officials of their full cooperation in the police probe of Bravante’s killing.
Based on the information gathered from closed-circuit television footages, Maranan said around 20 people were involved in Bravante’s hazing, who arrived at the scene on motorcycles.
Apart from the four in police custody, six other suspects have been identified by police investigators, all of whom are students from the same campus.
Bravante was the only neophyte who was subjected to hazing rites in an abandoned building in Barangay Sto. Domingo, Maj. Don Don Llapitan, who heads the QCPD’s criminal investigation and detection unit, said in the same press briefing.
Llapitan said the student was still alive after the hazing rites but collapsed after several hours.
This prompted fraternity members to bring Bravante to a hospital in Manila, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
Police also have in custody the security guard of the abandoned building, who claimed he was unaware that initiation rites were happening in the compound.
Schools scored over death
School officials should take more proactive actions against hazing, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said yesterday.
He noted that the anti-hazing law imposes life imprisonment and a fine of P3 million upon those who actually planned or participated in hazing that resulted in death, rape, sodomy or mutilation.
Gatchalian said under the anti-hazing law, schools are mandated not only to protect their students but also to launch information campaigns at the start of every semester or trimester to students and parents or guardians on the consequences of hazing.
The senator is a co-author and co-sponsor of the anti-hazing law. – Cecille Suerte Felipe