MANILA, Feb. 23, 2012— A Catholic bishop advised students not to join fraternities and sororities especially those with dangerous initiations.
Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez of Caloocan said the recent death of San Beda law student Marvin Reglos from an alleged hazing incident showed risks in joining fraternities.
He acknowledged that maybe not all initiations are dangerous, but stressed that enough have already been publicized to let the public know many are not safe.
“If an organization has things like hazing, (students) should avoid it,” Iñiguez told Manila archdiocese-run Radyo Veritas.
“We are also appealing to the youth to carefully examine organizations that they want to be with,” added the head of the Committee on Public Affairs of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippine.
Retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz believes that all fraternities can have the potential to be great and can affect community positively with the right leaders.
“Having a fraternity is not bad because it’s a brotherhood but let it not come to the extent that someone is hurt or killed,” Cruz said.
Investigations are ongoing into the death of Reglos, 25, who succumbed from multiple wounds and bruises obtained from an alleged hazing rites of Lambda Rho fraternity.
Another Church official, meanwhile, called on the government to regulate fraternities and sororities in schools.
“It is sad that this incidence was committed by young men with brilliant minds but with brutal hearts,” said Fr. Conegundo Garganta of the CBCP’s Commission on Youth.
“Thus, I believe, the government must by all means exact the law that will regulate fraternities and sororities to secure safety of students,” he said. [CBCPNews]