Thursday, October 12, 2006 Frat war erupts anew: Tau shot By Jovy S. Taghoy Sun.Star Staff Reporter
A TAU Gamma Phi member was injured while two other fraternity members-–one from Tau Gamma and one from Alpha Kappa Rho (Akrho)-were arrested after a shooting that disrupted a town fiesta in Naga, Cebu last Tuesday.
Naga in the south was celebrating the feast of St. Francis of Assisi.
The incident at 9:20 p.m. last Tuesday happened more than two weeks after officials of Akrho and Tau Gamma gathered at the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CCPO) and drafted a covenant, seen as a first step to forging peace between the rival fraternities.
The “Declaration of Cooperation and Unity between Tau Gamma Phi and Alpha Kappa Rho” will also be used as a model agreement to show feuding fraternity members nationwide that they want the rivalry to end.
However, just as officials from both fraternities were mapping out their proposals to be presented during a scheduled meeting with CPPO Director Vicente Loot by the end of this month, chapter members of Akrho and Tau Gamma clashed in front of Naga’s municipal town hall, some 100 meters away from the police station.
Tau Gamma member Joel Hermoso, 26, of Sitio Relocation Site, Tinaan, Naga, was shot in the chest. He is at the intensive care unit of the South General Hospital.
Akrho member Jehzel Paner, 19, also of Tinaan, and Dennis S. Caballero, 26, of Balud, San Fernando, a member of Tau Gamma, were arrested by town policemen.
Naga Police Station Chief Renato Malazarte said both Paner and Caballero were found in possession of .38 caliber revolvers. An Indian pana with four arrows was also confiscated from Paner.
Malazarte, however, considers the incident an isolated case triggered by a grudge.
He described Hermoso as a “hitman” of the fraternity and a known toughie in the town.
Last Sunday, both groups ran into each other but town police thwarted any clash.
CPPO Director Loot, in a separate interview, said the incident in Naga will not affect the ongoing efforts of the police and the fraternities to come up with a lasting solution to the rivalry.
“This is a long and tedious process,” Loot said.
The long-running rivalry between Akrho and Tau Gamma has resulted in shootings, stabbings and other violent clashes that have claimed lives from both fraternities and civilians.
They have been described as menace to society.
Local and police officials and even Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal have tried to broker a peace pact between the two groups.
Loot said they already anticipated that such incident in Naga will occur because the ongoing negotiation and the signing of the covenant were not yet disseminated to all the chapters of both fraternities.
As part of the agreement, any member from the two fraternities who figure in violence will be automatically suspended regardless of who is at fault.
Loot said he will meet with the officials of both fraternities by the end of this month.
The proposals of Akrho and Tau Gamma will be incorporated in the organizations’ respective doctrines.
