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Friday, August 11, 2006
Loot works on frat covenant
A planned covenant for Alpha Kappa Rho (Akrho) and Tau Gamma Phi to expel members who get involved in violent incidents got renewed urgency with this week’s shootings.
That as Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña stood his ground that police should go after members who commit crimes instead of alienating the two groups.
Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) Director Vicente Loot said yesterday he is worried that fraternity-related violence, which has gone down after he publicly called for the declaration of Akrho and Tau Gamma as criminal groups, will flare up again because of this week’s incidents.
Loot told Sun.Star Cebu yesterday that he had been planning to have the two groups sign a covenant but he got busy with security preparations for the coming Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit. He said Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia also got busy with Capitol affairs and they had to postpone the signing of the manifesto.
Draft
Loot said the manifesto would have been useful with Monday afternoon’s attack that left one Akrho member dead and another injured.
Loot said he and Capitol consultant Rore John Sepulveda were asked by the governor to draft the manifesto. He said the manifesto will require both fraternities to immediately disown members involved in crimes. Chapter presidents will also be made answerable for their member’s offenses. The fraternities will also be required to pledge to reform their members and control them.
The two fraternities will also be required to come up with a unified plan to solve their problems.
With the two shootings this week in Cebu City, Loot said he will follow up with Sepulveda the draft of the manifesto so they can hold the signing. He said that the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) can join the covenant signing. CCPO Director Melvin Gayotin, in reaction to the shootings, again raised the possibility of banning both Akrho and Tau Gamma.
Last year, Loot suggested that the two fraternities be included in the list of criminal groups after receiving complaints against them from CPPO police chiefs.
In Cebu City Hall, however, Osmeña said police should run after individual fraternity members and not alienate the groups. He said labeling all member of the two fraternities as outcasts will only worsen matters.
When told that the City-initiated dialogue between the two groups failed because clashes continue, Osmeña said there is now “less violence” because of the talks.
“My policy on this should be very clear: We do not discriminate against groups, we discriminate against individual violators of the law,” he said.
Individuals
He said going after Akrho and Tau is “not the right way to do things” because it is the individual member, not the organization, who commits a crime.
Police had complained that the two fraternities shield erring members instead of turning them over making it even more difficult to go after violators.
Osmeña said the City Government is helping police by putting up rewards for wanted fraternity members.
Early this year, City Hall allotted P600,000 as reward for the arrest of 10 fraternity members with standing warrants of arrest.
Last May 17, City Hall released P50,000 in reward money to a tipster who led police to the arrest of a fraternity member last January. It was the first time the City gave part of the P600,000 cash reward Osmeña promised.
With the tipster’s help, police were able to arrest Akrho member Santos dela Cruz, a suspect in the near fatal shooting of a college student in 2004. (MEA/RHM)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 11, 2006 issue)
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