QUEZON City Mayor Maria Josefina "Joy" Belmonte on Thursday ordered local police to go after the other suspects in the October 16 hazing incident that resulted in the death of a criminology student.
"The Quezon City government strongly condemns the hazing incident involving a student of the Philippine College of Criminology (PCCR) that led to his demise," Belmonte said in a statement. A QCPD report showed that the initiation rites of the Tau Gamma Phi fraternity happened in an abandoned building in Barangay Sto. Domingo, also in the city. Four suspects, namely, Justine Cantillo Artates, 20; Kyle Michael Cordeta de Castro, 21; Lexer Angelo Diala Manarpies, 20; and Mark Leo Domecillo Andales, 20, were already under the custody of QCPD's Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit. "Once again, this incident demonstrates that hazing is a life-threatening practice that violates the principles of human dignity," Belmonte said. She said that physical harm and violence through hazing and other initiation rites should be abhorred and condemned in accordance with Republic Act 11054 or the Anti-Hazing Act of 2018. "It is unrighteous to inflict harm on others that results in serious injury or worse, death, only to prove loyalty and brotherhood," the city chief executive added. Condoling with the family and friends of the victim, Ahldryn Lery Chua Bravante, 25, also a PCCR student and resident of Imus, Cavite, Belmonte said the city government would closely coordinate with QCPD for the arrest of other fraternity members. Same police reports indicated that the victim, a fraternity neophyte, sustained scars in different parts of the body, contusions at the back of his thigh and cigarette burns on his chest and hands.
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