With a total of 1,629 out of the more than 33,000 passing the written entrance examinations to the Philippine Military Academy, making a total of 1,629 possible hazing victims in the future, a lawmaker proposed that victims of the banned practice be considered accessories to the crime for their willingness to submit themselves to maltreatment.
Despite the official ban on the practice, hazing is still being practiced in the military and the police academies as well as fraternities in colleges and even in high schools, Rizal Rep. Fidel Nograles said.
Thus, the first-term congressman is eyeing amendments to the anti-hazing law, to include the victims as accomplices, that he hopes will end the culture of impunity surrounding hazing.
Nograles, a member of an Ateneo Law School-based fraternity, neophytes who join organizations knowing that these engage in hazing practices should also be held liable under the law as accomplices.
“In many cases, students join organizations despite knowing that they will be hazed. We hope that they will be deterred from joining groups with a hazing culture if they are aware that they, too, could be punished by the law,” Nograles said.
Such accomplices, however, have a way out—if they spill the beans and testify for the prosecution, noting that a “Code of Silence or Omerta rules certain institutions where hazing is practiced.”
In addition, he said victims who wish to speak out against the acts perpetrated against them could be made state witnesses.
“If we afford these victims the protection of the law, to give them assurances against possible retaliation, perhaps future hazing cases would prosper more than fail,” he added.
Conceding that the situation faced by military and police who are maltreated could be different, Nograles’ bill provides that there would be two elements before a victim is considered an accomplice to hazing.
First, the applicant must intentionally and deliberately submit himself or herself to hazing.
Second, the victim must knowingly cooperate in the actual execution of hazing, meaning that acts of hazing must be performed and the victim willfully allowing himself or herself be subjected to such acts.
“If we are to end the culture of impunity in organizations that maltreat their prospective members, we should make the Anti-Hazing Law more stringent,” Nograles said.