Servando dad gets wish: DOJ forms special body for speedy reso of hazing raps

The Department of Justice has formed a three-man panel to conduct a preliminary investigation into the death of alleged hazing victim and 18-year-old sophomore student Guillo Servando.

 

In Office Order No. 916, Prosecutor General Claro Arellano of the DOJ's National Prosecution Service assigned the following to make up the special panel of prosecutors on the case:

 

 

"The said panel is hereby directed to act with dispatch and solve the aforementioned case at the soonest possible time, and if the evidence warrants, to file the corresponding information before the proper court," said Arellano.

 

During the National Bureau of Investigation's filing of the complaint with the DOJ last Friday, Servando's father expressed hopes that the DOJ would form a special panel to specifically and speedily resolve the anti-hazing charges stemming from his son's death. 

 

The suspects were slapped with charges for violation of Republic Act 8049 or the Anti-Hazing Law before the DOJ.

 

Those charged were:

 

 

Among those charged were the two members of the Tau Gamma Phi fraternity who earlier surrendered to authorities, as well as Jomar Pajarito, the caretaker of the Makati residence where the initiation rites were held.

 

The two suspects who surrendered, initially identified as Primero and Segundo but later identified as Arevalo and Almazan, have already been provisionally accepted to the Witness Protection Program.

 

Apart from Arevalo, Almazan, and Pajarito, also planned to be presented as witnesses are Servando's two fellow neophytes John Paul Raval and Lorenze Anthony Agustin. — RSJ, GMA News