Novaliches Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani said on Thursday the Aegis Juris Fraternity should be banned in UST following the death of law freshman Horacio Castillo III in initiation rites.
“It is a particularly sad case and such thing should not be happening in the premiere Catholic University of the Philippines. [Hazing] should be remedied and my own suggestion is that Aegis Juris be banned in the University,” Bacani told the Varsitarian in an interview.
Bacani called for a “greater show of outrage and cry for justice” to make sure the incident does not happen again.
“I hope there [will be] a greater show of outrage against it and a greater cry of justice not simply in terms of punishment but in the sense of righting the wrong and making sure that it does not happen again,” he added.
The prelate also urged the suspects in the hazing death of Castillo to tell the truth, or carry the burden in their consciences for the rest of their lives.
“They will have that in their conscience maybe all their lives long if they do not come out with the truth. [M]agsabi na sila ng totoo. Otherwise, that will be weighing on their consciences. They might be free legally but deep inside, they will be imprisoned by the groaning of their own conscience[s] against what they have done,” Bacani said.
The 22-year-old Castillo died on Sept. 17 after going through the hazing rites of Aegis Juris, a UST law fraternity, which counts Faculty of Civil Law Dean Nilo Divina as one of its prominent alumni.
Bacani, in a lecture before the UST Theological Society at the Central Seminary on Thursday, lamented the lack of empathy and charity amid violence in society.
“We must read the sign of the times [and] scrutinize them. There are many others but these two, violence and indifference, have special prominence to [us],” Bacani said in a conference on Oct. 18.
“We are sheltered for so much violence, but not the rest of the world. Wars and killings are not strangers in our ears. [B]ut there is this ‘dedma’ (apathetic) mentality. This is the sad reality of our country,” he added. Elmer B. Coldora
