JEDDAH, 7 September 2007 — THE tragic and totally unnecessary death of Cris Anthony Mendez on Aug. 27, following severe beatings by members of the Sigma Rho fraternity at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, should be a wake-up call for all university administrators to once and for all ban fraternities which have proven to be incubators of violence and hatred.
The University of the Philippines has tried since 1976 to implement rules and regulations that govern the conduct of student organizations, including fraternities and sororities. Obviously these regulations failed on the morning of Aug. 27 when the lifeless body of Mendez was brought to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center by Dr. Francisco Cruz Jr. He was declared “dead-on-arrival,” and Cruz and several other people are now being questioned by the police about the circumstances of Mendez’s death.
Press reports have claimed that Cruz is the father of a current member of the Sigma Rho fraternity, which would explain why he brought the body of Mendez to the VMMC. What isn’t so clear yet though, is who from the fraternity is going to be held responsible for this cold-blooded murder of an innocent student who had the best years of his life ahead of him before his existence was so brutally cut short? The beatings to his legs and chest were so hard that the 20-year-old was left with bruised lungs and huge bruises all over his body, according to the autopsy report.
The university is being extremely circumspect in its public statements, a fact acknowledged by a lawyer who works for UP in a television interview this week. He said that the university was waiting for all the evidence to be gathered and analyzed, and noted that UP had in the past already taken vigorous legal action against other students involved in fraternity hazing incidents, most notably in a UP Los Baños case which resulted in the death of another student.
Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, himself a Sigma Rho member, lashed out at the fraternity saying it was a “trainer of thugs and killers.” Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago called for fraternities and sororities to be banned.
“I am so furious. I am going to fight for a bill to abolish fraternities and sororities. As far as I am concerned, from my experience in UP Diliman for four years in the College of Law, these fraternities do not aid the academic tradition of the university. They are nothing but elitist enclaves,” she said.
Breeding Ground for Racists
From my own experience with fraternities at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, when I was in college in the 1980s, I couldn’t agree more. Although my school being Quaker meant that it wasn’t a big frat school, we nevertheless had several and one in particular was especially troublesome. Its members were constantly getting into trouble with our campus police for being drunk, rowdy, harassing people and being a general nuisance whenever they threw big parties in their frat house. Then one semester a female student was raped at one of their parties and the college administration decided to shut down the fraternity for a few years.
The uproar from fraternity supporters was great, but the administration stood its ground firmly and did not back down. But that was no surprise, since my college already had a long tradition of questioning the value of Greek societies. Women at Swarthmore voted in 1933 to abolish all sororities there because they found them racist and divisive, especially toward Jewish students. In 1951, a vote was held to abolish fraternities, but it did not pass. Nevertheless, today there are only two remaining fraternities at Swarthmore, and many of the other top liberal arts colleges in the US have now abolished all Greek societies.
Greek societies had long been valued by its members as groups that give them a sense of community and belonging, and a vast network of peers who could help each other professionally after graduation. Yet the ugly underside of these groups was too much to ignore. The fact was that many of them encouraged racist, sexist and often violent behavior. As societies across the globe have developed and progressed, the need for such groups has faded, their negative qualities far outweighing the positive ones.
Students at UP and other universities in the Philippines should think seriously about phasing out Greek societies once and for all.
No amount of anti-hazing laws will ever be able to completely stop another Mendez being killed in the process of undergoing initiation rites into a fraternity. UP says that its regulations require that two university officials watch the initiation rites of any Greek society to make sure no one is hurt. But most fraternities that I know of do their hazing in secret meetings that are hardly open to the public, much less so to university officials.
I leave you with the touching words of a UP student blogger called flickerbot (http://flickerbot.multiply.com/journal/item/14/In_Memory_of_Cris_Anthony...):
“He was the eldest child in the family and coming from a broken family, Cris dreamed big dreams for his family. He wanted to be a lawyer — and he would have made a good one if he was not brutally murdered last Sunday, Aug. 26, 2007. His lung was punctured, his bladder burst, his face full of lumps and his body covered with large, dark, ugly bruises.
“It was not hard to imagine what he died from and whose hands blurred the future of those who depended on Cris.
“To Cris, may your soul find its peace in the Lord and may your memory remain a happy one to those who loved and cherished you.
“To his family, friends and loved ones, I’m sure Cris is in a better place now.
“To those who caused this tragedy, may your conscience never let you rest and may no sleep allow you pleasant dreams.
“Justice for Cris Anthony Mendez.”
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Comments or questions? E-mail me at: [email protected]. Visit my blog at: http://rasheedsworld.blogspot.com.
