It shocked me on the morning of Tuesday to hear the news of Cris Anthony Mendez�s death due, according to several sources, to hazing. My first reaction was denial�I immediately sent a �Walang ganyanan�� reply to the person who sent me the message. As the day wore on, however, his death became even more and more real�the news, the tears and sobs, the rising indignation among students were all living, breathing testimonies of his death.
Truth be told, I never knew C.A. more than the four hours we spent with several other friends and the few text messages we exchanged. But it doesn�t take much to realize how much promise a person holds and the value such person carries in the transformation of a rotten society�and I knew C.A. would be such person. In fact, if he was harmed in any way, fraternity-related violence was the last thing I would have suspected as the cause.
I know for a fact that there are fraternities that continue to uphold the meaningful roots of its founding, and that they continue to acknowledge the reasons for an organization�s or brotherhood�s existence. Yet undeniably, many others have gone too far�and this has been proven across decades of death and impairment and injury. The cloud of violence continues to hang over organizations in campus.
The nature of membership in such organizations, and the manner by which this membership is attained is similar to the feudal nature of Philippine society. The notion of being better when one controls the other�this itself within the contours of fascism�most present among the landlord-peasant relationships, as well as in other structures in society, is so prevalent that it has permeated into base forms such as student organizations. There is a prevailing system of thought that when one wishes to attain something�in this case membership, hence acceptance�he or she has to suffer first in the hands of those who already possess it, suffer that of which the possessor suffers, think and act like the possessor of the object so desired. Something could only be rewarding when one suffers enough to achieve it.
Unfortunately, in a larger scale, such as in the labor force, the rewards often fall short of the effort made to acquire such rewards. In a microcosmic scale, an organization might not be as rewarding as one suffers to enter it. It might not even come close to the reason for one�s decision for one�s application. In C.A.�s case, while he was presented with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of torture, he received nothing but the end of his otherwise promising life. In the case of the larger masses, while being promised a good life and survival, and rising among those who could afford leisure, they are eventually given death.
The imperialistic ideals flowing through various forms of popular media, those of elitism and exclusivity, of having to have enough resources or attributes in order to achieve things that could be given as a natural right have also entered the realm of campus organizations. In most organizations these days it seems as though saying that it is �exclusive� or �the elite� is a term of admirable qualities, hence justifying the horrendous process of initiation or admission into the group. This completely discounts the fact that in terming their organizations as such, they are not displaying the group�s commendable traits or the things that set them apart�especially those with horrifying rites but with questionable motives or preposterous or irrelevant visions�rather, they are adhering to the thought that not all people are equal to each other. This notion of supremacy over the other, even in this relatively early stage of life, creates the illusion that not all people have a right to access all their needs for survival, or even the rights constitutionally provided for them.
The culture of violence that hangs like a dark cloud over campus is represented in larger society by the number of political killings of journalists, activists, and the harassment of militant and progressive organizations, as well as the enforced disappearances of students and politically active persons. These activities manifest the culture of impunity that, like the culture of violence that infected organizations, fraternities and sororities on campus, continue to persist despite the condemnation of the greater masses. The figures continue to rise with no end in sight, and without the hand of justice intervening.
Needless to say now that C.A. did not simply die by the hands of several persons�he was killed by the current system dominated by feudal and colonial notions of fascism and domination. It is this system that has created needs�the need for power, for an illusion or a close reproduction of belongingness. It is this system that makes people want to kill and die for these needs�the very system that has normalized violence and made fascism a fashionable term.
In the end, because the need was artificial, the death is senseless.
C.A. deserves justice�his life was ended in a way that a life like his does not deserve. While he was half-dead, frightened and alone, his torturers and their cohorts were allowed to flee into the darkness of dawn. While those who killed him are enjoying the freedom to see another sunrise and another sunset, he lies in a cold, hard coffin that would be lowered into a dark pit. Those who are left could only surround him with love and affection that he so deserves�while suffering the grief of a son, brother, friend, classmate and a scholar lost in the process of acquiring an illusory need.
His blood clotted and hence stopped flowing to his vital organs, as the lifeblood of the mass bases will stop flowing and will eventually cut off the supply to the vital organs of society. And just like him, society will collapse and die a tortuous death, until the very end feeling nothing but pain. Society itself will suffer the same embolism that killed C.A., and under the same circumstances: cowering from the hateful blows and unfeeling hands of those that seek to control the mind and body of the entity.
The greater demand now is that the cultures that persist in larger society be stopped�those entailing the persistence of feudalism, imperialism and that which dictates violence. Only when there is a larger scale of change could the cultures of those smaller than it change, especially since these cultures have been entrenched through the use of large-scale machineries such as the government and its laws, mass media, and education. While change should also start with the individual, this idea might fail when the thoughts of well-meaning people, due to lack of direction, become misled by the cultures dominating society.
*** On a more personal note, I knew CA as a person of fine character. I suppose the best of us do go ahead. As most of our friends said: sayang siya.
Those who did this to him should suffer the most stringent forms of punishment�and if in fact this incident was fraternity-related, then they do not know what fraternity means. All they know is the use of force, power, and influence to cloak their wickedness�the very qualities that compose the common Filipino politician.
Marco D.R. Reyes 08.29.07, 08.31.07