Violence in Brotherhood

Fraternity, from the root word frater in the Latin word meaning brother, brotherhood, and every time I heard about this topic, I usually heard of the word brotherhood, because according to some people, this is what they are practicing inside the fraternity, but upon hearing the news about new members or neophytes in a particular fraternities, who died because of a rites called initiation, I somehow asked myself, is this what they called brotherhood?
We have an existing law here in the Philippines, the Republic Act No. 8049, or the Anti-hazing law, intended to fraternities, sororities and organizations that are practicing any forms of initiation rites. Hazing, a term used to describe various ritual and other activities that involves harassment, abuse or humiliation. According to the law, organizations such as the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, Philippine Military Academy and the cadet corps of the Citizen Military Training are included, and could be punished if any members from the said organization, or even the organization itself, practiced such initiation rites. As what I have understood on the law, it doesn’t necessarily prohibits the existence of fraternities and sororities in any place, because there are fraternities, which I believed, who doesn’t practice any physical, mental, emotional and verbal abuse to their members. The law focused on the initiation rites conducted by various fraternities and organizations, it completely prohibit any forms of harassment, especially physical abuse, that sometimes caused death to young new members of a particular fraternity. The maximum sentence is reclusion perpetua, or life imprisonment, if the act resulted to death.
We usually heard from the news about the said issue, and mostly because a frat member dies because of hazing, and there are numbers of cases before, and just recently, a college student again, from a university in Makati, died because of hazing, and luckily, the suspects were caught and about to be punished.
I have some friends who are members of particular fraternities, and there are times where they are telling stories about the experiences they’ve gone through just to be in, and mostly are evidence that it shouldn’t be called brotherhood, because a lot of physical and sometimes mental tortures are going on inside a fraternities. Some of them are humiliated in front of many people; some are being slapped in their faces, running outdoors in their under wears, and the most painful I believe, was being hit by a wooden weapon they called the paddle, not the paddle used by fishermen, but almost look like what we used in washing clothes. How could I say it’s the most painful, well, I’ve never experienced being hit by a paddle, but I’ve seen the bruises made by paddles, on the upper legs of the frat members, it’s like seeing a “double-dead” meat. This is part of what they called the initiation rites, it’s like a tradition on their part in welcoming new members, and measuring how tough the neophytes are, but I couldn’t understand why they have to hurt their so-called brothers, it doesn’t show brotherhood, it shows violence.
During my freshmen days in college, I was able to experience being invited by two well-known fraternities, I ask myself at first why did they chose me, and I just thought that it’s because of my built. I was very hesitant at first to join, because my father told me before or warned me before about joining fraternities, he said that I should avoid joining any frats and just focus on my studies, because he believed that it could only get me into trouble, and could even put my life into danger. Honestly, I thought of joining one, because I’m interested in knowing what it feels like to be a frat members, because it seems that most students are avoiding them and some are scared of them, because mostly believes that only those who are brave are the only ones who are qualified to join in a particular fraternity. I’ve heard before that fraternity is all about brotherhood, they have your back whenever you need them, they will back you up to any troubles your into, and they even could be at help with any financial matters. These reasons somehow made me think of joining, but, the fact that I would experience the fierce of the old members by hurting me physically, and humiliating me in front of many people, stops me, because I’m afraid of the pains that I could get from joining them. At the end, even if I was almost got into trouble because of their invitation, I have decided that joining any fraternity is a no for me, I have my friends that would back me up and I could run to whenever I need them, and besides, I could gain friends even without measuring how strong and brave I am by undergoing any initiation rites. In addition, loyalty is one best virtue that fraternities embodied, being loyal to your members, to the masters and to the organization itself, which one thing I admire to them, but still, hurting should not be practice inside the fraternity.
I am not into a position to question the legalities of every fraternity, though I still couldn’t figure out, why they have to hurt their members, just to test their strength and be an official frat member. I couldn’t see the brotherhood that they are talking about, because I believe that no one would want to hurt their brother. I’m happy with the existing law about hazing, because it somehow helps in stopping and prohibiting some fraternities in practicing the deadly initiation rites, though the implementation of the law still wasn’t enough, but it somehow helped. Brotherhood is about a bond you would want to establish within your group, it shouldn’t be incorporated with any form of abuse and violence; otherwise, it should not be called brotherhood at all.