The Philippine National Police (PNP) has requested the Department of Justice to issue a lookout bulletin for all the unaccounted suspects in the initiation rites that killed Adamson University engineering student John Matthew Salilig.
PNP chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin, Jr. said the DOJ has already been provided with names when the case was filed against those involved in the initiation rites and eventually the attempt to cover up the incident by burying the body of Salilig.
“We already coordinated with the DOJ to put these suspects on the watchlist so that at least the Immigration will be alerted just in case these people try to flee outside of the country,” said Azurin.
The Laguna police said at least 18 people are considered persons of interest in the hazing of Salilig, seven of them are under police custody and one of them allegedly committed suicide.
The family of Salilig earlier reported that he had been missing since Feb. 18. The last time he saw was when he was boarding a bus en route Laguna.
It turned out that he would be subjected to initiation rites by Tau Gamma Phi members. His body was later found buried in a shallow grave in Imus, Cavite, the location was squealed by one of the suspects.
Based on the investigation, Salilig was hit at least 70 times during the initiation rites and later died. His body was then buried by those who performed the initiation rites.
Need to level up
In Monday’s briefing at Camp Crame in Quezon City, Azurin urged fraternity members and leaders to level up their rules in the recruitment.
He explained that the idea of inflicting pain is similar to the pre-war period involving soldiers, the move was for them to be more pain-resistant in order for them not to reveal information to the enemies.
“We are no longer in the war period. They should level up in terms of accepting members of the fraternity. They should remove the physical contact,” said Azurin.
“I think ang primordial consideration in performing rituals like this is to study how many people have died after or while undergoing initiation rites. Do they feel happy, do they feel proud that they belong to that organization wherein members are getting killed?,” he added.