The school opening brings to fore a major headache of the school authorities: Fraternities and the troubles they bring like frat wars and hazing.
This city is home to several universities attended by thousands of students from different towns and provinces, most of who join the different organizations and fraternities in their schools.
There was no information on the seriousness of the situation, but school administrators deemed it alarming enough to ask the Sanguniang Panglunsod to enact an ordinance masterlisting all fraternities in the city and to establish an effective process of accreditation and tracking of fraternity members.
The scheme was proposed by lawyer Gonzalo Duque, chair of the education sector of the city development council and co-chair of the city peace and order council.
Mayor Benjamin Lim said the legislation is needed as “fraternity-related violence has intensified which may jeopardize our image as the educational center in the Ilocos Region. “With the ordinance, only fraternities with legitimate causes will be allowed to recruit members and organize activities in the city. Their movements and activities will then be strictly monitored to prevent fraternity wars and acts of violence,” Lim said in his letter to the SP.
The SP has not acted on the request. In a press release, Vice Mayor Alipio Fernandez said the SP has no authority to ban organizations in the city.
During a recent joint meeting of both councils, Duque said the councils were not asking the SP to ban the fraternities as long as these are within the bounds of law.
Only organizations of minors can be banned especially because of violence erupting in high schools, Duque said.
Ernesto Cabansag, peace and order coordinator of the Dagupan City National High School, said the organizations in the high school are not called fraternities but gangs although some of them do hazing at the back of the school.
Another concern raised by the school administrators is when the fraternities undertake hazing outside the school campus, are the schools still liable for the misconduct? “They do illegal activities outside, but near schools. Can we still run after them? Can we expel them? This is a gray area in the law,” Duque said.
Another issue raised was that there was no rehabilitation center for “incorrigible offenders” who are minors with no cases filed against them. City Administrator Rafael Baraan said the city government was pushing for the enactment of the ordinance regarding fraternities so we can put integrated mechanisms to address the problems.
