President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday night he cannot get rid of hazing in the fraternities despite approving a supposedly tougher measure banning and penalizing physical harm and violence during initiation rites.
He said hazing should be in moderation.
"Just enough. So if you can bring him to the hospital, he will live. But not that he will be killed,” President Duterte told reporters during his pre-departure briefing before flying to Russia.
Eradicating hazing will only be possible if the government bans fraternities, but doing so will raise constitutional issues since the 1987 Charter guarantees freedom to join organizations, Duterte said.
You cannot get rid of that, ma’am. Unless you ban fraternities for all time. Make it a criminal offense by joining a fraternity. But that would raise so many constitutional issues,” Duterte said.
He made the statement in the wake of the reported hazing incidents in several educational institutions, including the hazing death of Philippine Military Academy cadet 4th class Darwin Dormitorio.
Last week, a hazing-related conversation among Sigma Rho fraternity members of the University of the Philippines Diliman also surfaced online.
This despite the passage of Republic Act 11053 or the Anti-Hazing Act of 2018, which penalizes all forms of physical and psychological hazing and regulates initiation rites.
The law was crafted in a bid to make recruitment safer following the fatal hazing of University of Santo Tomas law freshman Horacio Castillo III in the hands of Aegis Juris members in 2017.
Duterte also said he suffered from “massive hematoma” when he went through hazing in college. He and his two classmates wrote to their fraternity to “earnestly” ask to do away with hazing but to no avail, he said.
The President is a member of the Lex Talionis fraternity at the San Beda Law School.
As for the hazing incident hounding the PMA, Duterte said he would wait for the results of the police investigation before acting on the matter.