Accents
Nipped in the bud of youth
Redding, California, USA, Aug. 31--The Filipino Channel that links us to the homeland showed the mother of Cris Anthony Mendez beside herself in hysterics. What fate has come upon her son? Cris Anthony died Monday, Aug. 27, of multiple blows which were too strong to kill, thus a man in the newscast commented. Cris Anthony died of brutal fraternity hazing, and this morning's news showed students and faculty members of the University of the Philippines in a demo to end fraternity violence. "Once and for all," they said.
Mabuhay ang pag-asa ng bayan - thus ends UP's university song. Indeed, long live the hopes of the Fatherland, and it is so sad that Cris Anthony did not live long enough to fulfill the promise of a song. Bayang Magiliw lost him in a senseless fraternity war that is as uncivilized as the tribal wars of long ago. After Cris Anthony, who is going to be the next victim of fraternity hazing? I shudder at the thought.
How ecstatic we are--riders in the information superhighway, so proud of civilization's achievement in high-tech--only to find remnants of the tattooed drum-beating denizens of the jungle lying in wait for their prey. How the beauty of the digital age that unites mankind in supersonic speed is being marred by tribesmen--so-called frat members--who are inept, careless, off the mark in the use of words to settle differences. Pseudo-men who think they can rise in stature by crippling another. Nice way to feel power, huh, like a tiger over a lamb. Second millennium? For some so-called intellectuals, it is back to the Dark Ages where resorting to clubs proves the man.
All of you in the brotherhood, do you think you could fathom the grief in the heart of Cris Anthony's mother? of all the other families who lost a loved one to senseless hazing? Will you rejoice if another outside the tribe is nipped in the bud of youth, if another mother loses her son in your frat war or in "heavy beating" as in the case of Cris Anthony Mendez?
Sometime in March 1980 when fraternity rumbles were too loud in UP Iloilo, I wrote to my son Roderick a letter intended to get across to the "buddies" the anxious concern of their mothers. I reproduce hereunder my "Dear Son" letter to reiterate this mother's insistence for a non-violent world of school fraternities:
"Your aunt handed me a phone number with which to reach you for the night. She said you mentioned about a rumble in the campus, and that you thought it safe to stay the night in a friend's house. On impulse, I wanted to get you safely home, but your Daddy's poor eyesight prevents him from driving at night. Anxious that I must talk to you at all cost, I had to disrupt a relative's quiet evening by using their telephone.
"Child, this letter is written out of a mother's anguish over what could be lurking in the dead of the night, and she--powerless to do something about it, holding on to a scrap of paper with five numbers scrawled on it as if it were a lifeline, a source of strength--temporarily deluding herself because the reality was that the phone number she was holding could not get you safely in bed. Your voice was heaven-sent over the phone. It was a great relief to know you are far from the fray, and that you're all right. I believed you, and I still do, when you said you wanted to enlarge your circle of friends. The noble aims of the fraternity you mentioned in passing.
"But now, I am asking you to withdraw from this association before it is too late. When a fraternity departs from its noble aims, what need is there to stay on? Not to condone a fraternity brother's retaliation is not to be disloyal, is not to be unbrave. Loyalty and bravery call for much deeper meanings. To condemn the pettiness of a fight--such as to salvage false pride--is to break away from frat links that have deteriorated to suffocating chains. When your fraternity's aims are no longer in congruence with the University's pursuit of the good and the beautiful, then loyalty must end.
"What did Antigone say? That her loyalty is not to Creon, the King, but to the Divine Law because it is for all time. This is the kind of loyalty that transcends the boundaries of dynasties and nations, much less that of a fraternity.
"Your school was once our school, and we love every inch of its ground. We don't want it desecrated by a drop of blood shed in barbaric violence. Your Daddy has decried the elitist character of fraternities and sororities. They are exclusivistic, therefore divisive. The more they draw you away from the Filipino masses you are morally bound to serve, you, the so-called "iskolar ng bayan." At this stage of our history [Martial Law regime] when you should be joining forces for the restoration of our basic freedoms, what are you doing instead? Dissipating your energies in your narrow worlds and petty wars.
"I am just as pained as the mother whose son was hurt in the rumble, and I believe she too would be just as pained if you were hurt.
"Please remember always and live by the message of the mother to her son in the play Hair: "Do what you want, be what you are, provided you don't hurt anyone."
(Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)