Floods and fraternity hazing

Ricky Poca

Lately, I heard many Cebuanos complain about the flooding in some streets in Cebu City, and this is not surprising.

Apparently flooding is now part of our lives, a reality caused by many factors like negligence, lack of vigilance and absence of discipline among city residents who mindlessly dump garbage and plastic everywhere they please.

Multiply that by the city’s large population and add the aging infrastructure and sewers clogged by too much garbage and we have a picture of a city helpless in dealing with flooding.

But we should not be dismayed because around the world flooding is also experienced just like what happened to Texas and Florida in the US and Puerto Rico after it was hit by hurricanes Harvey and Maria.

At least in our country we are far better in experience and adjust better to floods compared to other countries that are hit by natural calamities.

Still, a warning to all: we must be vigilant and mindful that we have a responsibility to mitigate the effect of these calamities like flooding by not throwing our garbage and plastic anywhere. We must also clear our rivers and streams of buildings and edifices and humans occupying these waterways.

* * *

Hazing became a hot topic due to the recent unfortunate death of law fraternity initiate Horacio Castillo that involved the Aegis Juris fraternity in the University of Sto. Tomas.

And this incident won’t be the last for as long as there are fraternities in school. But why is it that hazing is included during initiation into the fraternities?

Well they would always say that it is an important ritual in order to establish a sense of belonging. But why the violence in the hazing ritual that leads to a person’s death?

I think that is part of fraternity tradition so that the painful and harsh experience would differentiate one fraternity from the other.

When I was at my freshman year in law school at the Ateneo de Manila University, I was invited to an orientation of a fraternity called the Fraternal Order of Utopia but I did not push through.

One time as I was going home to my apartment there was a place where members of the rival frat the Aquila Legis would stand by and indeed they invited me to become a member of their fraternity but I politely declined.

I was mindful of the consequences. Members of both fraternities eventually became my friends. We studied together and ate together in the law school’s cafeteria.

The members of the Aquila Legis fraternity were closer to me because many of their members were from the Visayas and Mindanao like the late Arleigh Sitoy, Mayor Eping Remullo, Bebot Balisado and Averill Amor.

When there is trouble between the two fraternities, we the “barbarians” would be the only one to attend classes with some frat members of one fraternity.

My relationships with the members of the fraternities were basically cordial and respectful. And many of them became my friends and a few were my close friends.