EDITORIAL - Off to a crawling start

Now you can see why fraternity hazing persists. Nearly a month after De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde student Guillo Servando died from severe beating at the hands of his “brothers” in the Tau Gamma Phi fraternity, none of the 20 individuals tagged by witnesses in the orgy of violence has been arrested.

Only two fraternity members have been accounted for, and they turned themselves in to apply as state witnesses. The Bureau of Immigration has confirmed that four of the suspects have left the country. At the rate the probe is crawling along, the rest may soon be able to follow suit.

It can’t be for lack of witnesses. Apart from the two fraternity members now under state protection as provisional witnesses, the three other neophytes who survived the hazing in a fraternity house in Palanan, Makati have identified their tormentors to police and the National Bureau of Investigation. Photos have been released of the suspects.

As of yesterday, the preliminary investigation of the case had not started. Several of the fraternity members have been summoned for hearings on July 31 and Aug. 7. Government prosecutors said they must establish probable cause and file a case in court, which will then issue arrest warrants. This may drag on until the Christmas season, at which time all the suspects would have been able to leave the country to enjoy the holidays and never to return.

This case could turn out like the prosecution of the members of the Ateneo Law School’s Aquila Legis fraternity who beat to death neophyte Leonardo Villa in initiation rites. Aquila Legis alumni in the prosecution and judiciary are widely believed to have gotten in the way of the trial, which dragged on for two decades before a final verdict and disappointing sentences were handed down.

The country has an Anti-Hazing Law, Republic Act 8049, but it has obviously failed to serve as a deterrent to lethal and degrading initiation rites. Incidents in recent years have shown that even members of certain sororities are indulging their inner beasts, confident in the thought that they won’t get caught. This is starting to look like the case in the killing of Guillo Servando.