Press Release
September 20, 2017

SENATOR WIN GATCHALIAN'S MANIFESTATION ON THE DEATH OF HAZING VICTIM HORACIO "ATYO" CASTILLO III

First of all, I want to express my intention to be associated with the resolution filed by our seatmate, Sen. Migz Zubiri.

Second, I want to express my deepest condolences to the family of Mr. Castillo. Third, Mr. President, I remember in 2014 there was also a student who died because of hazing. This was Mr. Julio Servando. And after that, there was a wave of support and calls for repeal of the existing anti-hazing law, and to create a much more stringent, clearer, and new anti-hazing law. At the time, I was in Congress. We underwent two hearings and three technical working groups, and it was unanimously supported in the committee as well as in the plenary. It was approved on third reading, but unfortunately due to lack of time, it never went through the Senate.

Mr. President, taon-taon na lang mayroon tayong nakikita at naririnig na ganitong pagpaslang ng buhay, lalong lalo na ng mga estudyante. And every time that there is such a story, we would see a lot of support and a call for a new law. It's really about time to look at this incident and to really come up with a clearer and stringent law.

Mr. President, let me just give the body a few statistics, I will elaborate on this later on. Since 2002 to 2017, there are about 105 reported cases of hazing, in which 393 suspects were included in the case. Unfortunately, only 15 were convicted. That's a measly 3.8 percent conviction rate. Napakaliit at napaka-konti lang po ang nako-convict po dito sa present anti-hazing law natin.

So once again, I call on our colleagues to really look at this issue. And I laud the manifestation of our good chairman of the public order committee that he would prioritize this measure. It's really about time, Mr. President, to put an end on hazing.

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