‘Involved’ fratmen: Where are they now?
Almost three months after the death of Horacio “Atio” Castillo III—a death that forced many to question that true essence of “brotherhood”—and yet justice for the slain has not been achieved.
Atio, a UST freshman law student, underwent several stages for initiation to join the Aegis Jvris fraternity. But during the final rites, he did not seem to take in the pain inflicted upon him. He was said to be paddled five times by the master initiators and collapsed on the last one.
The other fratmen, panicking, immediately called up another ‘brod’ who was in the medical field to come help out in hopes of Castillo’s revival.
However, Atio was pronounced dead on arrival on September 17.
After hearings on hearings and other happenings on the issue such as the frat leader’s detention, surfacing of group conversations on alleged cover ups and presenting of fratmen witnesses: where are they now?
One thing’s for sure, that the Grand Profectus Arvin Balag is detained in the senate after being cited for contempt during the past hearings. Balag refused to answer the questions asked by Senator Grace Poe and the others.
Mark Ventura, a former officer of the fraternity, is presumed to be still under witness protection program after revealing some insights on the fraternity’s initiation process and what happened on the night itself.
The others? No one knows. We are all just waiting for another breaking news on any update whether justice will be served as soon as possible.
Time has passed and the case still remains unresolved. With limited but hard evidence, aspiring lawyers seem to find lots of loopholes in the constitution with having fellow ‘brods’ as their counsel.
Having the fraternity’s motto as “Do no injustice, Suffer no injustice” is as ironic as how lawyers (or the lawyers-to-be), the ones who supposedly uphold the law, broke the law themselves unjustly—if proven hardly.
One question seemed to bother me amidst the case: Out of all the hazing cases, why was this the most fussed about yet?
Only fourteen cases of deaths linked to hazing since 1995 were reported having 14 year old Christian Dela Cruz of Batangas as the most recent in 2015. Perhaps this may be the eye opener and the voice for all hazing related cases. But after months have passed, what happened to the case and where are all the allegedly involved fratmen?
It was as if an old book returned to the shelf unattended to. But maybe it went that way because there were no further follow-ups on the story after the last hearing on November 6.
The story happened to burst out of the media’s circle. It suddenly disappeared.
We are all waiting, hoping this would not be another forgotten case.
