Fraternity and the Culture of violence

(Article originally published in Yahoo News  )

The death of San Beda Law student Marc Andrei Marcos due to hazing once again causes pain and  frustration to many who can't  understand why fraternities have to be brutal and violent in the screening of their members.

Raymund Narag, a  member of Scintilla Juris fraternity when he was studying at the University of the Philippines, was imprisoned for almost seven years in connection with the death of another  fratman, Dennis Venturina of Sigma Rho, during a rumble at the U.P in 1994.

He has written several articles posted in his blog (www.raymundnarag.wordpress.com)  which he shares to the public for a better understanding of what he calls "the brotherhood".

Hopefully, these senseless deaths  would stop.

The introduction of  one of Narag's articles, titled "My Honor," gives a glimpse  of how his life had been turned upside down by the tragedy:

"I will graduate with honors. This April 20 and 21, 2002, the UP National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG) and the University of the Philippines will confer upon me my bachelor's degree Cum Laude. I will march tall and proud together with other graduates seven years younger than my batch.

"I should have graduated April 27, 1995. Unfortunately, just three days before the commencement exercises, a warrant of arrest was issued against me. I was allegedly part of a youthful brawl that caused the death of a young promising man. Together with other 10 other accused, I voluntarily surrendered to police authorities and submitted myself to the courts. Instead of a diploma, I showed my parents the papers taking me away from their custody and placing me under detention. Instead of marching to the stage with the applause of friends and relatives, I dragged my feet to the prison cell. My parents figuratively died. My family uprooted.

"I languished in jail for six years, nine months and four days. I endured the full length of a criminal prosecution, or more appropriately, persecution. I patiently waited for the day of freedom, counting the days, weeks, months, and years as they come one by one. I silently bore the humiliation of getting out of the cells with handcuffs. I chivalrously let go the love of my life when she asked a time out because she had been too pressured to defend our situation. I accepted my fate peacefully— knowing that there is a reason for everything."

Raymund E. NaragIn his article, The Brotherhood", Narag said, "the fraternity system has become a big black hole that sucks these young promising men to their graves. The fraternity as an institution, despite its noble and lofty ideals, has degenerated into becoming a barbaric gang. Internally, its organizational structure has become so hierarchically feudal, with the head becoming the law and the members losing their individuality. Externally, it has imbibed the culture of the tribesmen and treats other tribes as an unforgivable "enemy".

More excerpts: "The seeds of violence are sown into the heart of a frat man the moment he enters the fraternity. The rites of passage required before an applicant can be considered a "brother" is a ritual replete with physical and psychological violence. By testing the mettle through pain and humiliation, the new members are inducted to become blood brothers.

"The physical violence impinged on frat member during initiations becomes the rational for the acceptability of the other forms of violence. The members accept the violence as a normal practice. "

Narag said discussed the Code of Silence among frat members that makes difficult making accountable those responsible for the death of the those young men due to hazing.

"The fraternities anchor their strength on secrecy. Like the Sicilian code of omerta, fraternity members are bound to keep the secrets from the non-members. They have codes and symbols the frat members alone can understand. They know if there are problems in campus by mere signs posted in conspicuous places. They have a different set of communicating, like inverting the spelling of words, so that ordinary conversations cannot be decoded by non-members.

"The code of silence reinforces the feeling of elitism. The fraternities are worlds of their own. They are sovereign in their existence. They have their own myths, conceptualization of themselves and worldviews. Save perhaps to their alumni association, they do not recognize any authority aside from the head of the fraternity."

Narag said "Not all frat members however share the inclination or penchant for rumble and violence. In a fraternity there are more cool heads than hotheads. Perhaps in every ten members, there could be eight cool heads and only two hot heads. However, the cool heads are the silent majority in the fraternity. They seldom speak during meetings and are not elected during frat elections. Their opinions and views on how to run the affairs of the fraternity are not properly and openly articulated. The cool heads have no identity in the frat. They are lost in the multitude. They do not know each other. They do not even know that they exist. Their longing for peace is gobbled up by the voice of the hotheads."

He encouraged  victims to  speak now.

" The victims are not mere accidents. They are flesh and blood who would carry the bitter experience throughout their lives. They should break the code of silence and voice their concern over the growing barbarism of the institution that they belong. The victims should speak saying that all those who ever held a paddle and lead pipe are all guilty to the fate that had befallen them. The victims must initiate the voice: the enemy here is not the "other" fraternity, the enemy is ourselves. The culprit is the culture of violence that engulfs the fraternity system."

He  ended his article with "Here is the first voice."

“KAMATIS” LOVE AFFAIR OF PONCHING AND LINDA GORECHO

If I will submit the love story of my parents to “Maalaala Mo Kaya,” I will use the title “Kamatis.” The wedding line, “Till death do us part” will be replaced by “But death will not set us apart.”

My mother, fondly called Mama Linda, died  on May 17, 2002 due to pericarditis and lymphoma or cancer of the lymph nodes after almost a month of confinement at the Philippine Heart Center. A year and six months later, my father, Papa Ponching to many, died November 16, 2003 a Sunday, due to pneumonia after being bedridden for almost eight months brought about by complications arising from an operation on his brain (hydrocephalus).

When we were growing up, I remember times when Mama scolded us, “Buti nga kayo di nyo naranasan ang magtinda ng kamatis sa palengke.” Then she would cry. Perhaps, this was her way of saying that whatever the benefits we were enjoying then were due to their hard work..This is something that children have to realize: that parents will sacrifice a lot for the future of the kids. If mama would say the “kamatis” story, Papa, on the other hand, would tell us stories when he was still a security guard in a government agency before they got married in July 1968. Papa was a security guard by day and a student by night taking up library science. When he graduated, he proceeded to be a librarian in the same office until he retired in early 1990s.

People wonder why we have several stuff in our house which Papa did not want to dispose, especially the shoes. Papa justified this by saying that while he was growing up, he never had the luxury of owning new ones since both he and mama came from a family with very modest means. He tried to instill this in us such that long before ukay-ukay became famous, we were already wearing secondhand clothes and shoes, sleeping on beds, sitting on chairs and sofas that papa bought from the secondhand shops in Bangkal. Seldom did we wear brand-new clothes, except maybe during Christmases when our Titas bought us clothing on an installment basis - one Tita would buy us pants while another took care of the shirts. Never mind the shoes, andyan naman ang Bangkal. We became the walking models for ukay-ukay.

All throughout their more than thirty years of marriage, we never saw them engage in physical fights. Although we were accustomed to Mama’s masungit and mataray lines, we knew that was just how they expressed their emotions: only through words and eye contact. Laging sinasabi ni Papa: Bago pa man magkasala si mama sa kanya (siguro sa pagiging mataray ni Mama) pinapatawad na nya si mama. If mama was angry, Papa would just step back. Di nya sasalubungin emotion ni mama. They have a reverse role: Mama took care of the financial well-being of the family while papa was in charge of the spiritual and emotional needs of the children. Mama was the breadwinner and Papa was the house caretaker.

When Mama died in May 2002 , depression ruled over Papa. He refused to go out of the house. He declined to attend the marriage encounter activities and family affairs. His reason was he did not want to remember the times when they used to attend affairs together. The only times when he did go out was during Sundays when we would go to Manila Memorial to visit Mama. After praying the Rosary, we walked around with his payong serving as tungkod. Then he would tell me stories of life, how proud he was of us, his children. He often stressed that he had nothing to give to us but our future. We did not have money but we had the respect of people, especially the fact that two of his sons entered the priesthood, Fr. Philip and Fr. Stephen. At first Mama could not accept the fact that two sons chose to serve the lord but later realized, according to Papa, that they gave up two sons but regained the whole religious order as their new sons and daughters. Tuwang-tuwa sya pag tinatawag sila na Papa and Mama Gorecho. They had five sons and one daughter, two enterered the priesthood, i became a lawyer and the other son went into photography, the business which Papa engaged into while he was alive. Papa too had the same number of siblings: they are four boys in a row and the youngest was also a girl. I was the counterpart of Papa being the second to the eldest.

And when he fell ill, he told me "ready na ako para may kasama si mama ninyo". He died a year and six months later, November 2003.Mama and papa are now in heaven and that they will live happily ever after ‘til eternity.