Honor or Horror?

A History of
Hazing in the Philippines
This tradition of supposed 'respect for seniors' dates further back in history than we
realize.
By NICAI DE GUZMAN   |   Oct 8, 2019

ILLUSTRATOR Roland Mae Tanglao

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Philippine Military Academy Cadet 4th Class Darwin Dormitorio died of cardiac

arrest due to internal bleeding on September 18, 2019. A month leading up to
his death, he was humiliated and beaten by upperclassmen as part of his
initiation, an unspoken tradition at the academy. He is the latest victim of
hazing in the Philippines.
The 20-year-old bore many of the physical blows that were inflicted on him,
including being forced to perform cruel exercises and having his face wrapped
in plastic soaked with rubbing alcohol, but the abuse continued. After
returning to the dorm from the hospital where he was diagnosed with urinary
tract infection, his assailants electrocuted his genitals with a taser. He died
early the next day.
At this rate, despite laws against dangerous initiation rites, hazing seems to be
unstoppable (even President Rodrigo Duterte says it can't be eliminated). These
brutal actions have become synonymous with fraternities, which gives
brotherhood a bad reputation. What's more unfortunate is that fraternities
and hazing didn't start out this way. Their separate histories should serve as a
reminder that one doesn't have to exist without the other.

Pennalism and Fagging

Fraternities can be traced back to the Renaissance, according to Louie Blake S.
Sarmiento, who did extensive research on such organizations. Before trade unions
or health services became available, people relied on guilds (usually groups for
craftworkers) for protection and care. To distinguish members even from
distant places, secret signs or handshakes were developed. 
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In 16th-century London, guilds provided a social support function. They eventually
evolved into philosophical organizations that espoused brotherly love and charity.
They were known as fraternal orders or fraternities. 
Hazing, on the other hand, was said to have existed since the time of Plato.
The philosopher’s academy in 387 B.C. was plagued with a practice called
“pennalism” where young men played practical jokes on anyone who got in
their way. Plato was against this and even compared the perpetrators to wild
animals.

Despite opposition, this practice continued into the Middle Ages, coinciding
with the founding of the first universities. There were cases in history when
pennalism was banned in schools, such as the University of Paris in the 14th
century. One of the more famous participants of hazing was Protestant leader
Martin Luther who allegedly endured the practice as a student in Erfurt.
According to records, he reportedly supported hazing, which he believed built
tenacity among young men. 

PHOTO BY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.

In England, pennalism included the practice of “fagging” or humiliating first-year
students. In universities such as Cambridge and Oxford, fagging meant being a
servant of students from the upper years. Even Harvard had a similar tradition that
was dictated by college rules. During the prestigious university’s early years, it
required “freshmen run errands for all upperclassmen, never be ‘saucey’ and obey
every upperclassman’s order.”  
During the late 1700s and early 1800s, the fraternal orders of Europe were
transported to America by English immigrants. It wasn’t long before these
groups established themselves in colleges, including the Flat Hat Club in 1750
and the P.D.A. Society in 1773, both of which focused on academics and
literature. 
According to records, the oldest Greek-named fraternity in the U.S. is Phi Beta Kappa
founded on December 5, 1776, an honor society rather than a social fraternity. It was
in the mid-1800s when these organizations spread across America and established
chapters in different parts of the world.  

The First Fraternities in the Philippines 

Sarmiento also traced the origins of fraternities in the Philippines. According to his
research, in the Philippines, the Spaniards were said to have their own
fraternal orders that didn’t invite Filipinos. Citing the 1908 book History and
Geography of the Philippine Islands by author O.W. Coursey, Sarmiento noted
that Filipinos felt this was unfair. They would have their time, however, with
the arrival of the Odd Fellows Brotherhood in the Philippines in 1872. Just five
years later, the Americans brought the Freemason Brotherhood and lodges
were established by military men assigned in Manila. The lodges were usually
found in military base camps. These were the same men who would later fight
in the Spanish-American war.
In 1899, the ties of brotherhood were disrupted when the Filipino-American
war erupted. When the war ended in 1902, things returned to normal and the
Odd Fellows, Freemasons, and the Elks established lodges in the Manila area.

Of course, local fraternities were also established by Filipinos. According

to Sarmiento, the most famous of which was the Kataastaasang
Kagalangalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan founded in 1892 Despite
being a fraternity, it also welcomed women and, in fact, valued gender
equality. The main purpose of the group was the fight for independence and,
even when the Americans took over, remaining members continued fighting.
With Americans labeling the remaining members as terrorists and bandits, the
group suffered from a lack of support and funding and eventually died out.
University-based fraternities emerged when American education reached
Philippine shores. It was at the University of the Philippines, where the first
College Fraternity Rizal Center was founded. It was a brotherhood of Jose
Rizal followers.

The first Filipino Greek Letter Fraternity, Upsilon Sigma Phi, was founded in
1918, considered to be the oldest in Asia and exclusive to UP Diliman and UP
Los Banos students. The oldest sorority in the Philippines is the UP Sigma
Beta Sorority, founded in 1932, which is also exclusive to UP students. 
Fraternities stopped during the Second World War but, after the war, they rose up
again, especially in the '50s and '60s. During this time, American fraternities built
chapters in the Philippines, including Alpha Phi Omega. Several local fraternities also
made alliances with fraternities in the U.S.
While many associate hazing with these fraternities, this tradition and even
the unfortunate deaths that resulted from these practices are not exclusive to
such organizations. 

PHOTO BY PIXABAY.

Death and Hazing   

In the U.S., the first recorded death by hazing was at Cornell University in 1873 by
the Kappa Alpha Society. The victim was Mort Leggett who entered the university the
same year. By this time, hazing was a norm and first years expected to be paddled and
humiliated and undergo physical challenges. 
To “earn” his membership into Kappa Alpha Society, Leggett was blindfolded and
marched up a slippery and narrow trail beside a ravine. It was nighttime and Leggett
was said to have been abandoned by his seniors. Amid the treacherous circumstances,
he fell down the gorge. None of the Kappa Alpha Society members were punished
and several details of Leggett’s death were omitted from school records, including the
fact that the young pledge was blindfolded during the ordeal. Historians write that this
is proof that coverups have been happening since 1873.  
In the Philippines, the first recorded death of a pledge or neophyte in a fraternity was
in 1954. Members of Upsilon Sigma Phi allegedly mauled Gonzalo Mariano Albert
whose appendix burst, leaving him to die in the emergency room. This prompted then
President Ramon Magsaysay to form an executive committee to investigate Albert’s
death. 
The committee, composed of University of the Philippines officials, submitted
a 116-page report to Magsaysay on October 29, 1954. It stated that, according
to the medico-legal findings, the hazing did not contribute to Albert’s death.
The beating he received, however, weakened his physical condition.

The report did recommend that certain members of the fraternity be made
responsible for what happened, including the expulsion of four officers of
Upsilon and a one-year suspension for 25 members. The report also
recommended the elimination of physical initiation for fraternities and
sororities in UP. However, this report was forgotten and was never acted
upon.

At least nine other hazing victims were reported after Gonzalo’s death, and
in 1995, Republic Act 8049 or the “Anti-Hazing Law" was passed. Tragically,
this law was borne out of another death linked to hazing.
The victim this time was Lenny Villa, an Ateneo student, who wanted to be
part of the Aquila Legis fraternity. According to reports, he was beaten until he
died on February 10, 1991. This highly publicized case led to the conviction of
five members. Fidelito Dizon, Antonio Mariano Almeda, Junel Anthony Ama,
Renato Bantug Jr., and Vincent Tecson were found guilty of reckless
imprudence resulting in homicide. Their punishment included imprisonment
ranging from four months to four years and P1 million in damages. 
This decision was given 21 years after Villa’s death. 
After Villa’s case, there were at least 23 other hazing-related deaths in
fraternities. A more recent one was of Horacio Castillo III’s, a student from the
University of Sto. Tomas. However, this statistic does not include those who
died from the alleged hazing of gangs (in 2015, a 14-year-old boy died after
participating in the alleged hazing of the True Brown Style or TBS Gang in
Bulacan) or even the upperclassmen from the Philippine Military Academy.
The PMA also has its own separate record of deaths linked to the rite.
The earliest recorded case in the PMA was the death of Manuel Salas on
February 13, 1978. It was reported that upperclassmen dropped shot puts or
heavy metal balls on the stomachs of freshmen. Salas was killed while another
student hemorrhaged and nearly died. The latter was Alan Purisima, who later
became the chief of the Philippine National Police from December 2012 to
February 2015.
In 1981, Cadet 4th Class Andres Ramos Jr. reportedly died of traumatic shock
due to severe beatings. The military court sentenced a cadet to five years of
hard labor for his participation in hazing and another was suspended for not
reporting what happened.

The next instance of death allegedly due to hazing in the PMA was in 2000.
Cadet 4th Class Ace Bernabe Ekid was allegedly singled out by the
upperclassmen for being good-looking and wealthy. However, the official
investigation ruled out hazing and Ekid’s official cause of death was written to
be heatstroke. 

Just a year later, these hazing rites claimed the lives of two more cadets, Edward
Domingo and Monico de Guzman. In 2002, two cadets were convicted of homicide in
Domingo’s death and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Darwin Dormitorio's recent death has once again sparked conversation on stricter anti-
hazing laws.

PHOTO BY PIXABAY.

Revision of Laws?
According to a report by Philstar, after over two decades since the passage of the
Anti-Hazing Law, there has only been one conviction. 
This was in 2015 when the Supreme Court found two Alpha Phi Omega
members guilty of violating the law for the death of University of the
Philippines-Los Baños (UPLB) student Marlon Villanueva in 2006.

In 2017, when Castillo’s death sparked discussion about the law, members of
the upper and lower house filed separate bills seeking to amend the Anti-
Hazing Law.
Senator Tito Sotto filed Senate Bill 223, which seeks to impose a heavier
penalty when hazing is committed under the influence of drugs or alcohol and
also when alumni are present during hazing. Another senator, Win
Gatchalian, believes the current Anti-Hazing Law is not effective and must be
overhauled to eliminate loopholes. 

Gatchalian's Senate Bill 199 aims to prohibit all forms of hazing, except for initiation
rites that do not inflict physical or psychological suffering or injury. This is similar to
House Bill 3467 by Bagong Henerasyon party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy. The
same bill proposes heavier fines and longer sentences. At the same time, Gatchalian
wants schools to educate students about the consequences of hazing. 
If hazing has terrible consequences, why does it keep happening? And why has
it been practiced for centuries? Is loyalty truly forged through shared
hardships? (Read: Brotherhood: In Defense of Fraternities)
“We all went through this,” Senator Panfilo Lacson of PMA Class of 1971 said
during a budget hearing on September 30, 2019. 

The senator sympathized with both Dormitorio and the cadets who face lifelong
consequences due to his death. Lacson also authored an amended Anti-Hazing
Law that finally defined hazing as a crime, regardless of whether it results in
someone’s injury or death. 
“Times have changed,” Lacson said during the same hearing. 

For more on the history of fraternities, Sarmiento will be publishing a book History

and Encyclopedia of Philippine Fraternities and Sororities: The Glory Days of the Past
and the Issues Faced Today." (In Progress).