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Senior High School Department

The document discusses the history and effectiveness of anti-hazing laws in the Philippines. It describes how the original 1995 Anti-Hazing Law was enacted after the death of a student due to hazing. However, deaths continued to occur despite the law. In 2018, President Duterte signed amendments to strengthen the law. The amendments are expected to be more effective by allowing closer monitoring of student organizations, prohibiting all hazing instead of just regulating it, and introducing heavier fines that will help reduce hazing incidents.

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Juley Dhiee
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98 views2 pages

Senior High School Department

The document discusses the history and effectiveness of anti-hazing laws in the Philippines. It describes how the original 1995 Anti-Hazing Law was enacted after the death of a student due to hazing. However, deaths continued to occur despite the law. In 2018, President Duterte signed amendments to strengthen the law. The amendments are expected to be more effective by allowing closer monitoring of student organizations, prohibiting all hazing instead of just regulating it, and introducing heavier fines that will help reduce hazing incidents.

Uploaded by

Juley Dhiee
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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University of Saint Anthony

(Dr. Santiago G. Ortega Memorial)


City of Iriga

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

In Philippine context, the Republic Act No. 8049, otherwise known as the Anti-
Hazing Act of 1995 was designed to prohibit and penalize violence, particularly hazing in the
practices of fraternities and sororities in the country. The law defines hazing as “an initiation rite
or practice made as a prerequisite for admission into membership in a fraternity, sorority, or
organization by placing the recruit, neophyte, or applicant in some embarrassing or humiliating
situations such as forcing him to do mental, silly, foolish and other similar tasks or activities or
otherwise subjecting him to physical or psychological suffering or injury.” For you to
understand to how this law came to be, you need to go back in 1991 when Leonardo Villa, a
student from Ateneo de Manila University, died from multiple injuries after he underwent hazing
rites of the Aquilia Legis, a fraternity of law students at the said university. The incident shed
light on the practice and the passage of the law served as a response to Villa’s death. Since the
passage of the law, deaths due to the malpractice of hazing did not actually stop and still
increased in number. Records show that there are at least 15 people who have died and within
more than 22 years of the law’s existence, there has been only one conviction.

There are a lot of questions and people are being skeptical regarding the
effectiveness of the Anti-Hazing Law. Many believe that the law is lax to actually end the
tradition of violence among these organizations. According to the law, initiation rites could still
push through given that there is a written notice given to the school administration 7 days prior
to the conduct of the activity with the undertaking that there will be no employment of violence.
But this is where things become problematic, the rules set forth by the law are not always
followed and that the tradition of putting an applicant to a “test” of physical violence has
become an open secret among the students. Most likely, these activities are only put into
spotlight when people are killed because the law is only after those who are liable if a person
suffered from any physical injury or died due to these rites. This means that the law does not
actually deter the conduct of these rites. Regarding the psychological status of the victims, the
law does not cover the effects on mental health of an applicant entirely. Only when the victim
becomes imbecile or insane there will be interventions. It is really hard for me to imagine how
many of those victims were unscathed physically but left with psychological trauma. So until the
existing Anti-Hazing law remains in effect, the practice is likely to proliferate.

With this harsh reality, many have called for amendments to the Anti-Hazing
Law until President Rodrigo Duterte’s signing of the Anti-Hazing Act of 2018 or the Republic Act
No. 11053 which amends the Anti-Hazing Act of 1995 which failed to cease the growth of
hazing deaths.
University of Saint Anthony
(Dr. Santiago G. Ortega Memorial)
City of Iriga

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

What are my assertions about the newly-signed law?

First would be an easy monitoring on organizations. In the updated law,


organizations are required to comply for an application and must first be recognized by the
school to perform activities (also in holding initiation rites, even if hazing is not involved) in and
out the campus premises. There are also guidelines provided by the school by which the
organizations must adhere to. This means that activities of organizations would be more visible
to school authorities preventing any untoward happenings and promote the welfare of students
involved in these organizations. I can say that this is to the best interests of the students (their
own welfare).

Second is the upholding of its purpose. The law can now prohibit and not just
regulate hazing, thereby, upholding its very purpose of actually banning any forms of hazing
among organizations.

Lastly, there will be an expected decline in the number of hazing incidents. The
new law introduces fines as a part of penalizing those who are liable for hazing. An example of
this is a ₱2-million fine for those who planned and joined the hazing. Any form of consent,
agreement, and written notice that gives right to the conduct an initiation rite but with the
involvement of hazing is void. With heavier punishments to penalize the oppressors and an easy
monitoring on organizations, the number of incidents would decline.

For all those reasons and more, I think that the Anti-Hazing Law of 2018 would
deter violence among organizations.

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