Here and There
SKs, only School Kids yet
By Gerry Garcia
A FRATERNITY, by common understanding, is any body or order of men organized or associated by some tie or common interests. In schools, it may be a literary or musical association of students devoted to declamation and oratorical contests or the holding of vocal and instrumental concerts, etc.
In universities and colleges, the fraternity, having gained reputation by its dedication to sophisticated causes like dramas, orations and debates, has equally become an exclusive society bearing a name in Greek, like Sigma Rho, or Alpha Omega or Magna Carta.
To signify class and exclusivity.
You can imagine the feeling or emotion that a student gains from becoming or being a member of a fraternity.
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Most fraternities today have become too exclusive and the requirements and qualifications entailed by membership are forbidding, insane and, in fact, sadistic.
And often, the frat’s master of initiation, not the head of the fraternity, is himself a master of sadism, probably without him knowing it while many others, especially those opting to become a frat brod, do not know either.
That’s why many neophyte fratmen, expecting to undergo trying moments to qualify for membership, end up either in the morgue or the hospital but… never in the fraternity, after the initiation. Or hazing, as every decent man calls it.
Fraternities at the UP are a notorious group, considering the number of deaths involved in the university’s violent frat initiations. There was Mark Welson Chua and Monico de Guzman who did not survive the hazing in 2001. The latest was Cris Mendez, a senior Public Administration student who died from sustained severe hematoma on the arms, feet and legs indicating he was furiously beaten to death.
Fraternities today have become no more or less than an ordinary street gang, or barkada, like the Akyat Bahay and the Bukas Kotse gangs.
We think the reasons are clear and many that frats at the University of the Philippines should be banned not merely suspended. Frat head Raul Grapilon, who denied knowing that the initiation which killed Mendez actually happened, was actually talking through his hat. Naturally, he was Frat head, not the initiation master.
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We agree with what our fellow-columnist Gonz Duque said about scrapping the Sangguniang Kabataan from our political system. Our SK officers, aged between 18 and 27 years, most of them anyway, have been riding on their parents’ success at the polls and are in office today because of “their parent-politicians who placed them there for obvious reasons.”
Gonz, who had been a politician himself for decades before he gained the presidency of the Lyceum Northwestern University and the National Association of Colleges and Universities, should know what he’s talking about.
Even some mayors in the 3rd and 2nd districts are all for doing away with the SK because most of them, being still studying in school, hardly have time to attend to their responsibilities as elected officials.
But Gonz’s scathing but factual remarks focused on “some SK officials merrily riding flashy vans and Starex vehicles, some even armed with high-powered guns”.
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/here-and-there/)
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