Fighting hazing

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

In the light of the recent prominence of the barbaric and deadly practice of hazing  in the news, one of the institutions where hazing is usually assumed to be secretly tolerated, because it is part of a long tradition of misplaced masochism, has thankfully announced that hazing among police recruits is now a thing of the past.

Chief Supt. Luis Saligumba, director of the Police National Training Institute, recently said they are now very particular about human rights violations in the Philippine National Police. The subject of human rights in now incorporated in all courses, not only for police recruits, but also for junior and senior leadership training. Furthermore, Saligumba also says that they have not received any reports of hazing activities in all regional training schools all over the country that are supervised by the PNTI.

The irony of hazing is that the people who have been most associated with the illegal and deadly practice come from organizations that are related to the law and law enforcement. San Beda law student Marvin Reglos is said to have lost his life at the hands of his so-called “brods” at the Lambda Rho Beta fraternity when they mercilessly beat him to death after he submitted himself to their depraved requirements for brotherhood.

Sometime in 2010, a video of police trainees being made to drink chili-laced water and having their genitals rubbed with hot pepper confirmed what many of us have already known: that hazing was still being practiced in the PNP. Although it was dismissed as an “isolated incident,” and the police officers who were found to be responsible were sacked after an investigation, the impression that hazing is normal among police trainees remains.

We certainly would like to give Chief Supt. Saligumba the benefit of the doubt when he declares that hazing in the PNP is now a thing of the past. We hope that the changes that the PNTI has instituted can transcend what are perceived to be established traditions and requirements within the PNP and that hazing has actually been eliminated and not just driven deeper underground among the same people who are supposed to uphold our laws which include the Anti-Hazing Law.

If the PNP can take a stand against hazing, perhaps law fraternities and the law community can do something more about this dehumanizing and deadly tradition than just sending their best lawyers to defend their “brods” who have been accused of this heinous crime.*