Today would have been Cris Anthony Mendez’s 21st birthday. It should have been a happy family occasion, but it was not meant to be. Instead we have a mother and a brother who is still grieving his death, wondering if justice will be served for CA. Instead we have his friends who are still sorry about such a loss.

While his family and friends are thinking of what-ifs, his killers are on the loose, defiantly taunting the law, wickedly evading justice.

He would have taken the UP Law Aptitude Exam. Knowing that life at law school would be tough, he thought that joining a fraternity would help him. Paolo Ante recruited him. He knew that joining has its perils, but he took a risk, assuming that his future brods would be gentle (since there is a law, but criminals regularly disdains the law).

Yet he died. And still, the criminals are free, living a life of a fugitive, perhaps, but still free. And alive.

And while his family and friends are grieving, Sigma Rhoans are acting as if nothing happened. As if taking a life is as easy as snuffing out a lighted cigarette. I wonder what these Rosigs are doing. Probably thinking of recruitment plans.

The Sigma Rho alumni are no different. While some notable alumni had spoken out (and one of them resigned), most stuck it out, reminiscing the good old days in a round of beer or two, reliving the gauntlet and the rumbles.

“To stand by the side of any brother Sigma Rhoan right or wrong,” so states their basic tenet. Too bad for Mendez, he died soon enough, so the cowards of Sigma Rho abandoned him – besides, he is no brother, technically speaking. Anyway, the facts speak for themselves – the killers are on the run, and Rosigs stand by their brothers. That makes them virtual accomplices to the crime. They’d side with the criminals, and not with justice.

Requiescat in pacem, CA.