Another young man has lost his life undergoing a “rite of passage” that has been deemed unlawful.
Marc Andrei Marcos, law student, in joining a law school fraternity, went through an initiation process that, in the end, took rather than gave him a future.
His family grieves, concerned citizens are righteously indignant, and the authorities are in the thick of investigations. The news reveals that some 20 individuals may be involved in the death of young Marcos.
Government officials have reiterated that hazing is against the law. “It is a heinous crime under the law. In fact, it is non-bailable,” said Undersecretary Francisco Baraan III, officer in charge of the Department of Justice (DoJ), in a Daily Tribune report last Aug. 2.
For this non-bailable offense, students of the law are, ironically, risking their future in order to help assure themselves of a future.
Some members of fraternities interviewed revealed that being part of such societies can be a boon for one’s future ambitions. It gives them the kind of support they need for their studies, and even a sort of social edge while in campus and beyond. It also, in the long-term, gives them the connections they may someday require to advance in their line of work.
For some, these are enough reasons to submit themselves to an initiation process that involves something one would assume they already know as unlawful, being the law students that they are.
This, in fact, is already a form of test on their idealism and principles, whether they know it or not.
For if idealistic young people choose to ignore a law for what they may deem as loftier reasons, what does it say about our future lawyers and leaders? What does it mean for us, the citizens they will someday serve?
“This is sad because this is the second time that the victim is a law student of San Beda,” continued Baraan in the report. ...Hazing is really prohibited by the law. This should stop.”
The first incident, as recalled the undersecretary, involved his own fraternity, Lambda Rho Beta (LRB), just five months earlier. It snuffed the life of student Marvin Reglos, who suffered from internal injuries due to hazing. This latest loss of life due to hazing puts in the limelight the Lex Leonum Fraternitas, which did not seem to learn from the LRB debacle.
Party-list representatives are pushing the passage of House Bill (HB) 6084, which seeks to amend Republic Act 8049 (Anti-Hazing Law) and, if passed, would impose “stiff penalties” such as life imprisonment, against “hazing and other injurious fraternity activities;” as well as HB 5912, “which seeks to include the fact of intoxication and the presence of non-resident or alumni fraternity during hazing as aggravating circumstances that would increase applicable penalties to the Anti-Hazing Law,” as reported in this paper last Aug. 3.
Unfortunately, laws may exist, and they could even be revised to suit the times or address new issues. One may read the stately words and the imposing sanctions involved, but they will remain mere words on paper unless they are followed or properly enforced. And in the light of recent events, it is also important to know that everyone’s involvement or concern is necessary for any law to be effective.
The San Beda school authorities, for example, had already been tasked by the Commission of Higher Education, following the Reglos case early this year, to impose sanctions on those involved in the  case, as well as submit a certified list of the Greek societies in their campus. San Beda had replied that since it did not recognize such organizations, it could not, at the time, turn in such a list.
In a way, it may be construed that the college was not taking responsibility for organizations that it did not recognize, which would then be considered as secret or unofficial organizations. And with this second grievous incident, one can only deduce that the school had not made more stringent moves to prevent another such event from happening.
What would it take, indeed, for all of us to learn from past disasters that result from either the disregard of the law or the failure of enforcement? When it suits us, we like to uphold the so-called Rule of Law, but when no one is looking, we often ignore such rules, sidestep such laws, and bear the consequences later. In the same vein, we tend to let things be when it seems no harm may come of our action or inaction. It is such indifference that must be changed if change is what we desire.