today, i read Patricia Evangelista's column at the Opinion Page of Philippine Daily Inquirer.

digression: i've always had respect for her since she won for the Philippines (and for herself, since that paved the way for her for a lot of opportunities) in that international english-speaking competition in london (for the loathing of my memory, i've no such thing as specifics) but her short stints at Young Star and at Studio 23's Breakfast show, didn't really earn it. i'm glad she's in "higher" grounds now, her column sitting beside those of conrado de quiros and randy david, a once-upon-a-time airtime with bo sanchez and a new one in ANC (clue: they're always serious there). there's no doubt of the brilliance of her thoughts and of how she expresses them.

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A BOY DIED LAST MONDAY.

This year was his last in the University of the Philippines Diliman, the year he sat in the student council. He was the eldest of his family, and his mother in Tiaong, Quezon believed he would pull them out of poverty. He was 20 years old. Cris was tall, and thin, and kind, and when he was killed last Monday, his killers ran away and tried to forget who he was.

I write this at dawn, six days since he was carried into the Veteran's Memorial Medical Center, battered and bruised purple. The doctors say Cris was dead on arrival.

Cris Mendez left testimony with his friends that he was joining Sigma Rho, and that Ariel Paolo Ante, chair of the NCPAG student council, was his recruiter and initiation master. Ante has disappeared. In a report from this paper, Ante asked Cris' friends to wish him good luck "for the initiation" which was to take place over the weekend.

Right now, the men who watched Cris die can still sleep in their beds at night. They remember how his eyes looked those last few minutes. They know if he cried, if he begged; if he said please, stop. They held his broken body on the way to the hospital. They saw him and touched him and heard him scream, and today some of them still go to class and study human rights law.

There are many things I do not understand. I understand that these fraternity men are scholars, law students, people educated by the state in the hope that someday they will give back in service to the nation. I do not understand what sort of twisted logic can make intelligent men believe that friendship and loyalty need to be proven through a brutal initiation.

"Such distorted values," as UP Diliman Chancellor Sergio Cao says, "have no place in an institution of higher learning like UP." Hazing is illegal, and has been for more than a decade. The administration is currently building its case against Sigma Rho, and its officers have been suspended.

Last Friday, Cris' friends from NCPAG lit candles and gathered on the steps of the Palma Hall building. There were around 200 of them, less than the numbers of those who protested tuition fee increases, thousands less than those who turned up for last Christmas' lantern parade. The Office of the Vice President for Public Affairs has received more calls over the streaking of two women during the Oblation Run than he has regarding Cris' death. This is UP. We say we stand for the people. We condemn the violence of the war against terror. We rage against those who mangle the Constitution. We fill the streets with our numbers for the disappeared and the distressed. Yet we continue to work and study beside barbarians who whip unresisting boys into submission. Today one boy is dead. One life is gone. Many others have been lost before, but were forgotten. Why are we silent now?

read the entire article at: http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=86071