Anti-Hazing Act author urges to amend not repeal existing law
(Former senator Joey Lina gives the Artlet audience the lowdown on RA 8049, a law he himself wrote. Photo by Danea Patricia Vilog/THE DAPITAN POST)
Lawyer and former senator Joey Lina called for amendments rather than motions to repeal the current law against hazing in a seminar on September 29 at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Medicine Auditorium.
Lina, the author of the Republic Act No. 8049 or the Anti-Hazing Law of 1995, claimed that repealing the current law is a “dangerous move” for legislators to consider and could send the wrong message to the public.
“[To repeal] a law means to revoke or annul. If you revoke or annul a law, therefore there will be no law, and if there is no law, there is no crime. The very concept of hazing will be thrown out of the wind,” Lina explained.
The former senator was referring to the proposals penned by at least three legislators – Senators Juan Miguel Zubiri, Sherwin Gatchalian and Loren Legarda, who all expressed support for the repeal of RA 8049 amid the death of UST Faculty of Civil Law freshman Horacio Castillo III allegedly under hazing.
“No law is written [on] stone, wala namang batas na permanente at perpekto. There may be changing circumstances, changing times, which could open up the law for revisions,” Lina said, citing the amendments proposed by Senator Vicente Sotto III.
According to Lina, Sotto suggested including punishments for conducting hazing rites under the influence of drugs or labor, both of which the former senator considered as aggravating circumstances and could be possible grounds for amendment.
Asked on the implication of sitting legislators, some of whom had been part of fraternities themselves, attempting to repeal the existing Anti-Hazing Law, Lina said he believes many legislators genuinely want to ban hazing despite having such connections.
“I must say that senators, and even congressmen, really want to stop hazing, and I will give it to them. No one will say [that] they are for hazing. But as to whether some legislators will influence judges, the fiscal or even the police to drop hazing cases, that’s too speculative,” Lina told the Dapitan Post.
While many legislators have expressed desire to completely abolish fraternities, lawyer Ramil Sasi said such organizations cannot be totally banned.
“We have the constitutional freedom to form and join unions, organizations, fraternities and sororities, and they cannot be outlawed, so to speak,” Sasi said, citing Section 8 of Article III of the Constitution, also known as the Bill of Rights.
Sasi added, “It seems that UST has become a hotbed for fatal hazing in the past few years, especially in our law schools. Be careful, think twice, exercise due diligence and sound judgement in joining fraternities and sororities.”
Lina also discouraged the students in the audience not to join organizations that “use hazing as a requisite to membership” and instead told them to expand their networks and “build more bridges of friendship”.
“No man is an island. I do not encourage you to just bury your noses [in] your books and only confine yourselves in the four corners of your classrooms, then go home and do nothing else. It is important for your growth and development to belong,” Lina said.
Organized by the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters (AB) Student Council and the AB Board of Majors, ‘Initiation Rights: Culture of Violence in the Promise of Brotherhood’ is a seminar conducted in an effort to establish a discourse on hazing and enlighten the AB student community on the case of Castillo, who was an alumnus of AB himself.
