Alpha Kappa Omega: The beginning and end of fraternity violence
- ATF News Online
- Apr 24, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: May 17, 2019
Story by Joyce Serut
As fraternity-related violence resurfaces its monstrous face in today’s society, the urgent need to tell stories that portray and condemn its grim consequences also returns. One of the most critically-acclaimed films on this issue, Mike de Leon’s “Batch ’81,” finds its way to Filipino audiences after almost 37 years, this time, as a theater production. It hopes to show the reality that the culture of harmful, humiliating, and deadly activities in fraternities still lurks in the shadows today, waiting for its next set of neophytes—unless we do something about it.
The film, screened in no less than the Director’s Fortnight of the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, was adapted into a theater production entitled “AKO: Alpha Kappa Omega” by two-time Palanca Winner Guelan Varela-Luarca. The play closed Sturm and Drang (Bagyo at Bagabag), the 40th season of Tanghalang Ateneo (TA) which is the longest running theater company of the Loyola Schools of the Ateneo de Manila University.
TA’s AKO follows the journey of Alpha Kappa Omega (AKO)’s neophytes—composed of notorious zoology student Sid Lucero, his best friend Arni Enriquez, economics professor Santi Santillan, Ronnie Roxas Jr., son of an AKO alumnus, Pacoy Ledesma, a sheltered freshman, and Ding Magtibay, a promdi (“from the province”) student—as they go through life’s struggles with the added burden of the grueling hazing by their fraternity “masters,” Vince and Gonzalez.
The odd mix of neophytes shows how a fraternity’s prestige and power can be seen as a solution to different needs. Although they differ in their reasons for joining, they all see AKO as a way to make their lives better.
However, AKO’s ungguyan (power-tripping) sessions serve as a rude awakening for the neophytes-- that before they can get to their much-desired positions, they would first have to go through many undesirable activities. The term ungguyan is quite apt, as their masters’ demands become increasingly inhumane over time--with the neophytes’ food, sleep, relationships, reputation, and dignity tampered with their encounters with the masters.
The pressure brought by AKO complicates the characters’ lives. Roxas and Enriquez begin expressing their desire to quit because they were expected to be robots- immune to all kinds of abuse and compliant to all orders, but their complaints are drowned by the loud, repeated chants of the other neophytes- “Alpha Kappa Omega! Ang simula at wakas ay kapatiran!” The two are eventually convinced to chant along and continue with their initiation process.
The disturbing imagery of this appeal to brotherhood manifests how abusive hazing can be framed but at the same time downplayed as a challenge needed to instill strength and the spirit of fraternity among neophytes. Despite the two neophytes insisting that this kind of treatment should not be tolerated, their other batchmates defend the ungguyan sessions as tests from which they will emerge stronger, and their masters as builders of their brotherhood.
At this point, the play transitions from the disgusting imagery to a somewhat inspiring turn. The neophytes are shown enjoying with their masters in a performance for a fraternity event. Suddenly, it seems easier to believe that their hardship would be justified and rewarded in the end with true brotherhood.
But in the midst of the celebration, AKO shakes the audience with the tragic death of a neophyte in the hands of a rival fraternity, Sigma Omicron Sigma (SOS), offering a pill that is hard to swallow: no façade of charm or goodness from fraternities can mask the fact that violence is deeply ingrained in the culture of fraternities. They may entertain and help people, but truth remains that fraternity-related violence has harmed and claimed many lives, and still does so today.
The resulting fraternity war between AKO and SOS manifests how useless this violence is. The fraternities’ agreement to the clash, fueled with their motive of vengeance, pushes these organizations into a childish and primitive state with their “eye for an eye” mentality. The classical music and choreographed movements during the brawl make the fight look almost comical, a farce made by fraternity boys who justify their thirst for violence with the usual excuse—brotherhood. It was almost humorous and yet, incredibly frustrating.
This was cut short as the fight took a darker turn by taking even more lives. It was evident now that the brawl was worth nothing: the revenge does not undo what has been done and even adds more deaths to it, all to satisfy both fraternities’ egos.
Santillan and his colleague, Ms. Casuso, try to make sense of this meaninglessness through their conversation. With Santillan’s regret and Casuso’s contemplation on the tragedies, AKO emphasizes that fraternity-related violence is preventable, but when nothing is done, lives would be lost and wasted.
But their conversation, like the earlier fraternity brawl, was also worthless, in the sense that the realizations came after the deaths happened. Still, it provides a consolation that in the future, people could perhaps realize that fraternity-related violence is a pressing problem and create measures to prevent its repetition.
This hope, however, is brief. While the guilt-consumed Santillan attempts to quit the system after his acceptance into the fraternity, his remaining fraternity brothers are shown in the end as the new AKO masters interrogating the new batch of neophytes, perpetuating the cycle of abusive hazing.
The cycle has been going on for a long time. The message against fraternity violence in AKO remains relevant as the problem prevails even today and still places lives at risk. Nearly four decades after this story was first shown on screen, incidents of fraternity-related violence still occur, such as the November 2018 fraternity rumble between the Alpha Phi Beta and Upsilon Sigma Phi fraternities of the University of the Philippines Diliman and the September 2017 death of Horacio “Atio” Castillo during a hazing incident by the Aegis Juris fraternity of the University of Santo Tomas.
Fraternity-related violence is difficult to study given its private and clandestine nature. But there have been attempts to explain why hazing and inter-fraternity conflicts occur.
A study by anthropologist Aldo Cimino says that there are persistent explanations across different studies as to why hazing is done. It is an expression of solidarity and dominance which allows for the selection of committed members.
Inter-fraternity conflicts, on the other hand, stem in defense of one’s ego or the fraternity’s name. In his reflection, professor Raymund Narag notes that these rumbles can be caused by merely misinterpreting eye contact or gestures, offending another frat man’s manhood, or establishing control over activities and events.
But as the tragedies in AKO show, none of these reasons justify the violence in fraternities. AKO portrays how enforcing solidarity, dominance, and commitment through hazing and settling conflicts through brawls can become gateways to unnecessary losses such as trauma and death. This leads to the conclusion of Ms. Casuso in her conversation with Santillan, that fraternity-related violence is nothing but a waste.
The imagery of abuse in AKO is powerful in reinforcing condemnation against these forms of fraternity-related violence, but ultimately, the audience must channel their sentiments beyond the theater and manifest them through actions that prevent this culture.
This is easier said than done. It is evident, not just in AKO but more so in real life, that removing this culture of abuse and violence requires a systemic change. But it begins with the agreement to draw the line between what is dignified and what is abusive, and to act when needed.
AKO ultimately calls for its story to become irrelevant. The culture of violence still happens, and it’s horrible- worse still, we have not done much to change this. So we have to do something about it now, or the culture of violence will remain in the years to come, and we would need yet another retelling of “Batch ‘81” for the next generation.
Society can regret and contemplate all it wants, but as long as nothing is done to address the problem of fraternity-related violence, the cycle will go on, and we, too, will continue regretting and contemplating on blood-filled floors.
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