EDITORIAL - Of frat wars and solutions

Warring fraternities Alpha Kappa Rho and Tau Gamma Phi cried foul over the plan of Provincial Police Chief Vicente Loot to tag them officially as criminal groups. Leaders of the two groups said a criminal tag would be unfair because reports of violence involving some members are isolated cases and do not reflect the behavior of the general membership.

While it is true that the behavior of some members of an organization does not necessarily reflect that of the general membership, the leaders of both fraternities should remember that theirs is an organization. They must also remember that their members who committed atrocities carried the name of the organization when the crimes were committed. Almost all acts of violence involving the two fraternities were caused by their rivalry. Now how can the police separate the act from the organization? The leaders of both organizations should not look at Loot's plan to brand them as criminals as an attack to their respective fraternities. In fact, the leaders of the two groups should see the plan as a call for help, that the police need the help of the leadership of the two organizations to stop the violence among members. No amount of dialogue can stop the atrocities between the two groups if the leaders will not step in. After all, it is the leaders of the two groups who can control their members best. Not the police, not the local government units.

The first step to solving fraternity violence is for the leaders to get their acts together and check on their members. As leaders, they should not wash their hands off the behavior of a handful of members who have wronged the organization. It was these leaders, in the first place, who accepted these people into the organization. They should take full responsibility of the actions of these few members and impose sanctions if needed. We agree that not all members of fraternities are violent. There are fraternities that have contributed much to the communities they belong to. And it is because of these reasons that we believe that something can still be done to stop some members of rival fraternities Akrho and Tau Gamma from inflicting injury on each other.

Fraternities and organizations in general are created to foster camaraderie. Yes, rivalries among different groups may cause friction and misunderstandings. How a fraternity or an organization deals with these misunderstandings and friction makes or breaks the group. It is about time that rival fraternities Akrho and Tau Gamma change the community's perception about their respective organizations by dealing with the wrongdoings of a few of their members. They alone can solve these problems. They alone can stop the violence.