In the name of brotherhood

An eyewitness has come forward to testify on the Aegis Juris fraternity hazing that led to the death of University of Santo Tomas law student Horacio “Atio” Castillo III, and the testimony is horrific.

According to Marc Anthony Ventura, in final initiation rites that began at 1 a.m., Castillo was first subjected to relentless punches on his arms that turned the limbs literally black and blue—“puputok na,” in the frat men’s picturesque language.

After this beating, Castillo was ordered to do a dance number, then, blindfolded, to swallow the contents of a glass (the spittle of the fraternity members present), next to strip naked, then to stretch and “hold his balls,” to protect them during the fifth and final phase of the rites: the paddling.

It was now around 5 a.m. In a six-page affidavit, Ventura said that on the third whack of the paddle Castillo fell to his knees; but, since he was still conscious, he was struck a fourth time.

It was the fifth blow, supposedly made by Aegis Juris leader Arvin Balag, that sent Castillo crumbling to the floor and losing consciousness. He would never wake up again, despite the members reportedly sitting him up and dripping candle wax on his chest and foot to see if he could be roused back by the additional pain.

When Castillo remained unresponsive after 15-20 minutes of prodding by his would-be “brods,” the panicked members phoned a frat mate, medical technologist John Paul Solano, to come over to help. Solano performed CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the stricken Castillo, but when nothing seemed to work and the neophyte’s pulse rate had dropped to “borderline” level, the decision was made to take him to hospital. Castillo was brought, not to UST Hospital which was just across from the fraternity library where the initiation was held, but to Chinese General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The fraternity immediately went on lockdown mode. Members were instructed to go quiet on social media, and those involved to clean up the scene of the crime. One suggested retrieving the barangay CCTV showing Solano et al. transporting Castillo to the hospital, while another mused aloud about preempting any police charges by reaching out to Castillo’s parents and forging whatever settlement was possible to spare the fraternity any adverse exposure.

The lawyers and would-be lawyers were hard at work exploring ways to extricate themselves from the sudden inconvenient death in their midst. But nowhere in their conversations, as revealed in the transcripts of the Facebook messages presented at a Senate hearing by the Manila Police District director, Senior Supt. Joel Coronel, did these supposed men of the law, and scions of respectable families, express remorse for their grievous actions—or even sympathy to Castillo’s parents, who by this time were beside themselves with grief at their son’s fate. Ventura himself said that, afterwards, he went home, heard Mass, and then fell asleep.

He heard Mass. He fell asleep. How could anyone involved in a night of unspeakable violence conducted in the name of brotherhood even sleep? The 24 Aegis Juris members present at Castillo’s initiation, along with their various enablers and defenders in the circles they move in, apparently can—and are now engaged in the time-honored ritual of denying blame and shirking even the tiniest jot of responsibility in the tragedy.

Since Lenny Villa’s death in 1991, there have been some 27 hazing-related killings, despite the passage of the Anti-Hazing Law in 1995. Take out Castillo’s name, and the brutal details of his torture and death in the hands of his would-be brothers chillingly recall the ordeal of the many others who preceded him. How many more young Filipinos will die before this country says enough to this warped culture of brotherhood through violence?