Last Friday was a black shirt day for UP students in protest, condemning fraternity related violence and seeking justice for Cris Anthony Mendez, a fellow student at the National College of Public Administration and Governance. His death was allegedly caused by hazing of one of the fraternities in the University of the Philippines.
We, at the NCPAG, headed by our Dean Alex Brillantes, Jr., held an indignation rally to show to the whole UP community and to the people of the Philippines that these acts of violence must be put to an end. In the end, justice must prevail.
10:00am, I arrived at my college, and there were a lot of people in black already waiting for the rally to start. A few minutes after, professors along with their students came down from classes to join the protest. Teachers, students, staff, were all there in support. Literally, the whole NCPAG community was represented.
Student Council representatives, organizations, batchmates, and members of the NCPAG community, gave their own statements about Cris, and how we is as a friend and a student leader.
The dean called on the students and the people who knows anything about what happened to come forward and shed light to the incident.
We started marching from NCPAG to University Avenue to Music, Engineering, Law, Education, Psych, and to our destination Palma Hall, where we would meet with the contingents from the different colleges for a program.
It was really a different experience for me. We were around 200 people chanting, and others most probably shouting their lungs out “End Frat Violence”, “Justice for Chris” and “Sigaw ng NCPAG,” “Katarungan” (”Justice”).
We reached Palma Hall, and the media and different organizations, groups were there waiting for our contingent. Statements condemning these acts and call for justice were delivered by different groups, including the USC, UP Administration, etc.
The feeling was really great. Despite the really tragic incident, we unite as one voice, one family, one college in protest for the inhumane act that was done to Cris.
A friend asked me why I joined. I joined because I believe in the cause. It was not political. I’ll never join a political rally. I believe that I had to be there, and make a stand. We need to project that we are strong, and we stand together in these times of trials and tragedies. All in all, we all wanted justice and for these acts to end.
Dean Alex Brillantes showing to media the picture of Cris
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