Palace hopes SC ruling on hazing conviction to deter violence

MANILA, Philippines - A Palace official expressed optimism yesterday that the recent decision of the Supreme Court upholding the landmark conviction of the country’s Anti-Hazing Law will finally serve as a deterrent to campus violence involving warring fraternities.

“Hopefully, we’ll see that the law really does have teeth. If there is any hope for this conviction, it is that it will have an effect on others; meaning, they would see that there is a law,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.

“The fraternity members should be deterred from breaking the law,” Valte said, referring to Republic Act 8049 (Anti-Hazing Law) on the conviction of two Alpha Phi Omega members for the fatal hazing of University of the Philippines Los Baños student Marlon Villanueva in 2006.

“It’s one thing to have a law that is passed that criminalizes a certain act; it’s another to see that the law is actually in effect and works and that it produces convictions,” she explained.

Last week, the SC’s Second Division affirmed the guilty verdict handed down by the regional trial court Branch 36 of Calamba, Laguna on two APO members tagged in the fatal hazing of Vilanueva.

The SC dismissed the petition of accused Dandy Dungo and Gregorio Sibal Jr. assailing their conviction and the penalty of imprisonment of 20 years and one day to 40 years.

Sibal and Dungo, in their petition, insisted that the prosecution failed to prove that they participated in the hazing of Villanueva.

They argued that what the prosecution only proved during the trial was that they persuaded Villanueva to join APO and go through the initiation rite.

The SC did not buy such a defense.

Affirming the findings of the trial court, which were also upheld earlier by the Court of Appeals, the SC held that the two did not only induce the victim, they also accompanied him to the venue of the final initiation rite.

“The hazing would not have been accomplished were it not for the acts of the petitioners that induced the victim to be present,” read the SC ruling penned by Associate Justice Jose Mendoza.

“Secrecy and silence are common characteristics of the dynamics of hazing,” the high court said, adding that to require the prosecutor to indicate the step-by-step planned initiation rite when details are almost nil “would be an arduous task if not downright impossible.”

Aside from the doctors who testified on the injuries sustained and the cause of death of the victim, the prosecution presented the security guards on duty when Villanueva was brought to the hospital, the owner of a sari-sari store in front of the resort where the initiation rite was held, the tricycle driver who brought the three to the hospital, the policeman who took Dungo and Sibal from the hospital for questioning, a UPLB student who said she saw the victim being punched by Dungo on campus and the caretaker of the resort.

While there was no witness or other evidence presented to prove their direct participation, the sequence of circumstantial evidence or the series of facts presented by the prosecution showed the guilt of the accused, the SC stressed.

“In the absence of direct evidence, the prosecution may resort to adducing circumstantial evidence to discharge its burden. Crimes are usually committed in secret and under conditions where concealment is highly probable. If direct evidence is insisted on under all circumstances, the prosecution of vicious felons who commit heinous crimes in secret or secluded places will be hard, if not impossible to prove,” it said.

It stressed that there was evidence that Dungo and Sibal brought the victim to the venue of the final initiation rite, where Villanueva sustained injuries that led to his death.

“The unbroken chain of events laid down leaves us no other conclusion other than the petitioners’ participation in the hazing… With the fact of hazing, the identity of the petitioners and their participation therein duly proven, the moral certainty that produces conviction in an unprejudiced mind has been satisfied,” the SC added.