UP frat men swap charges

The warring Sigma Rho (SR) and Alpha Phi Beta (APB) fraternities vowed Friday on national television to press charges against each other over a bloody scuffle at the state-run University of the Philippines campus in Diliman that left one student dead and three others injured.

"Our lawyers are now gathering evidence against the Sigma Rhoans," said Joel Erestain, spokesman for the APB over GMA-7 news program Saksi.

The APB spokesman, a second year student in the UP College of Law, tagged fellow student Fulgencio "Bibit" Factoran III as one of three members of the rival fraternity who ganged up on and killed APB man Den Daniel Reyes, a third year engineering student from Bulacan.

Erestain, who is also a member of the University Student Council, said Reyes was buying fish balls at a rolling stall in front of the Yakal Dormitory when he was assaulted by Sigma Rhoans with knives. "The autopsy shows that the fatal wound was on his back," he said. "How can they say that we started the fight when we were the ones who lost a fraternity brother?"

But Factoran, son of former Department of the Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Fulgencio Factoran Jr., denied the allegation, saying that he and fraternity brothers Gil Taway IV and Marshal Rongo were the ones who were attacked by two carloads of APB men on Magsaysay Road at around 8 p.m. Thursday.

He said they were walking back to the UP Law Center complex after bringing some things to the Ipil Dormitory -- which is adjacent to Reyes' dormitory -- when masked men attacked them with bats and bladed weapons. Factoran is a junior law student.

Taway and Rongo were brought to the UP Infirmary where they registered under their names as Gil Baway and Marshall Nagal, respectively, while Factoran, who was seriously injured, was taken to the East Avenue Medical Center.

Sigma Rho Grand Archon Emir Tubayan, a graduating law student, defended his fraternity brothers, whom he said, "were attacked without provocation."

"We will not let this pass," said Tubayan. "We will press charges."

In an interview with The STAR the morning after the incident, APB Lord Chancellor Rey Faizal Millan, a fourth year law student, said the fraternity will first attend to the needs of the family of their slain fraternity brother before taking any legal action.

UP Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Ma. Theresa Jazmines issued an order Friday suspending officers of the two law-based fraternities, which had a long history of enmity.

"This action will help forestall any further incidents between the two fraternities, said UP Chancellor Emerlinda Roman. The UP said investigators are still putting together the details of Thursday night's bloody encounter between the two fraternities -- yet the latest in a series of bloody rumbles that began last December inside the 493-hectare flagship campus of the university system.

The Thursday incident shocked the UP Community, which only last year, mourned the death of 19-year-old journalism student Niño Calinao, who was killed by mistake in the conflict between the Sigma Rho and the Scintilla Juris fraternities. The irony of it all was not lost to many in UP residents who noted that Thursday night's rumble happened while a fund-raising concert was taking place on another side of the campus in memory of Calinao.

Calinao, a journalism student, was gunned down by four men behind the old Arts and Sciences building on Feb. 19 last year. He was said to have been mistaken by hired assassins for a member of the Scintilla Juris fraternity.

Fraternity-related violence has become a major concern for university officials, who must also contend with deteriorating academic standards and shrinking budget allocations in what is supposed to be the country's premier state university.