Long standing institutions have allowed fraternities to amass vast amounts of power; now, it is proven this withstanding state has corrupted them absolutely.
In the last two weeks, incidents in the university involving fraternities Upsilon Sigma Phi and Alpha Phi Beta have instilled fear within and compromised the safety of anyone who entered the campus. Whether it was an alleged car chase, a group chat with disturbingly discriminatory messages, or a string of attacks against innocent and unaffiliated individuals, these institutions have allowed a problematic machinery to infiltrate the walls of the university and beyond, subsequently at the cost of public safety and security.
Fraternities, they say, are mainly founded on noble values of brotherhood and lifelong loyalty. But for what use are these values when they are purposefully perverted to make way for intimidation, coercion and all other forms of violence? In the spirit of these values, fraternity members turn a blind eye and tolerate their brods’ misdeeds, if not directly participate with them.
Fraternities, in this light, also installed their brods in the top seats of the University and its institutions. These brods were able to amass power under the guise of public service, selflessness, and other seemingly altruistic reasons. Through means such as pulling strings and bypassing checks and balances, they are able to tip the scales in favor of their fraternities.
Years of this practice, particularly in the wake of multiple fraternity-related incidents, bore a problematic structure amplified by a culture of impunity – one that lets affiliated individuals evade punishment and walk away unscathed every single time.
The previous widespread dominant media blackout both in the university and national levels is a recent, glaring example of this farce. Their brods in student councils, particularly the University Student Council (USC), have yet to prove the sincerity of their efforts to partake and assist in the investigations on the incidents.
The fraternities involved seemed to have forged an alliance to make sure to sweep all these incidences under the rug and keep the public in the dark.
Lest we also forget that one of these fraternities is having their centennial celebration, it’s no surprise their efforts to “curtail the besmirching of their reputation” have all the more intensified. An organization obsessively concerned with their image will expectedly resort to such deplorable tactics.
It raises much alarm when the very administrative body of an institution turns a blind eye to these incidents. It becomes even more frightening when student leaders, who are supposed to be at the forefront of demanding accountability for inaction and disservice, remain silent.
All this because of brotherhood.
The UP Journalism Club calls for swift, transparent investigations of the recent fraternity-related incidents, which have compromised the safety of UP students and worsened an atmosphere which has already been rife with terror and unrest. These efforts must persist until those found guilty of committing deplorable acts have already been identified and sanctioned accordingly.
Furthermore, UPJC demands that more information on the incidents be actually made available to all. The public is the biggest stakeholder in cases of threats to a community’s overall peace and order – it is imperative that they know the facts, identities especially of the perpetrators, and other pertinent details of these cases.
We also enjoin the members of these fraternities, particularly those in positions of power, in holding their erring brods accountable and demand for change in their organizations’ pre-existing cultures and practices.
Let it be clear that even with the resignations of these student leaders from their posts, this toxic culture would remain for as long as fraternities continue propagating it. And until these individuals fully cooperate with the investigations on the incidents involving their brothers, their resignations are a mere avoidance of responsibility and a manifestation of them choosing their fraternities over the student body.
No brotherhood of a select few was, is, and ever will be valuable enough to cost the safety and security of an entire community, let alone the entire public.
This statement/editorial first appeared on Facebook on Nov. 26, 2018.
