EDITORIAL - One small step toward justice

Government prosecutors have indicted 11 members of the Aegis Juris fraternity for the fatal hazing of University of Sto. Tomas law student Horacio Castillo III. There is, however, a long way between indictment and justice in this country. The failure to give justice to victims of fraternity hazings bred the impunity that contributed to the death of Atio Castillo.

The anti-hazing law, Republic Act 8049, was enacted in 1995 in response to the hazing death of Ateneo de Manila Law School student Leonardo Villa at the hands of Aquila Legis fraternity members in February 1991. Existing laws at the time of his death were applied, and the law fraternity is believed to have mobilized its network in the judiciary to ensure that those accused of his killing would receive the equivalent of a slap on the wrist.

Several of the defendants eventually became lawyers and some even joined the government. Adoracion Angeles, the Caloocan regional trial court judge who had convicted 26 fraternity members of homicide in November 1993, found herself facing cases that derailed her career. Her ruling was largely overturned, first by the Court of Appeals, and then by the Supreme Court in a division chaired at the time by then Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

It took 21 years before the case was resolved with finality by the Supreme Court, and the decision was a letdown for Villa’s bereaved relatives. Even the law that sprung from Villa’s death does not ban but merely “regulates” hazing and other forms of fraternity and sorority initiation rites. Although penalties are specified, enforcement of the law has been so lax that even teenage girls in reputable universities and colleges indulge their inner beasts in sorority initiation ceremonies.

In such an environment, will the family of Atio Castillo ever get justice? Government prosecutors must see to this, even as Congress works on a law that genuinely bans hazing. They would be glad for their work if one day, the person saved by a hazing ban is someone dear to them.