Hazing, or more specifically deaths caused by hazing in the Philippines, is a very disturbing situation. This year, there have been two known incidents of death by hazing, one last February and another just this month.
It is alarming enough that these deaths are still happening, and even more disturbing that the cases persist despite the country having an Anti-Hazing Law. There have been arguments made to push for stricter laws against hazing, for dealing heavier punishments to those found guilty of violating such laws, and for giving the relevant agencies more power to implement them.
Are these, however, really enough?
It has been done before. The 1995 Anti-Hazing Law has been improved to cover every possible action that can be considered hazing with the 2018 version or Republic Act 11053, which has arguably tougher repercussions for violators. And as the cases of hazing deaths that followed since suggest, even this has not been enough or much of a deterrent.
This is because the problem is not in the law but in the existence of a particular kind of culture prevalent, albeit not in an open manner, in Philippine colleges and universities.
Hazing, although openly condemned by everyone who is in these institutions of higher learning, is seen by some like a necessary right of passage — one that those who go through it are even proud to proclaim as if wearing a badge that distinguishes them from the rest — by some who think that it is alright to have initiation rites in joining fraternities and/or sororities.
There is a culture that allows for hazing to be carried out by fraternities like an open secret. The even sadder thing is that those who have gone through such an experience, whether it is the potentially lethal ones or the more subdued and embarrassing ones, brag about surviving their fraternity's or sorority's initiation rites.
Sure, an argument can be made to prove that initiations and hazing practices are two different things. But are they really? The culture that allows for one is the same that lets the other persist. It is one of those things that, as Filipinos say, is “okay lang naman basta huwag mahuli,” which in the case of death by hazing would be “huli na” or too late.
While we now have stricter anti-hazing laws, we need to change the culture that celebrates violence as proof of loyalty or, and this is the sadder reality, as a badge of brotherhood.
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