The police said the student was found unconscious by his mother.
The university confirmed that a student died.
But UP Diliman Chancellor Michael Tan called on the public to refrain from posting on social media about the death of the student, who the university did not name.
“I appeal to all students, faculty and staff, as well as other concerned parties in and out of UP Diliman, to stop posting and forwarding social media messages related to the death of one of the Sigma Rho Fraternity members implicated in last week’s online expose of the fraternity’s hazing,” Tan said.
“Let us do this out of sense and decency and respect for the privacy of the family,” he added. A spot report from the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) showed that a 22-year-old Sigma Rho student took his own life in his home in Marikina City on Saturday afternoon.
His family had executed a waiver to launch an investigation into the crime scene.
Tan said the university had initiated an administrative action “toward the pursuit of justice for the hazing victims,” and vowed to keep the public posted for updates on the cases.
“Sensationalism is, itself, a form of violent assault, and is not the solution to the fraternity culture of violence,” he added.
On Wednesday, an anonymous Twitter user called on the concerned parties to put an end to hazing, which “has done nothing but destroy lives and create this false sense of brotherhood.”
His tweet came with leaked private conversations from 2017 among fraternity members about performing a hazing ritual and a photo of a man in a white shirt with bruised arms.
Among the leaked screenshots was a photo of the student who committed suicide holding a paddle. A UP alumna defended the dead student.
“(The other Sigma Rho members) are the only ones who have access to that particular thread. That initiation happened two years ago, in 2017,” Carla May Bautista told Manila Times.
Bautista bared that the victim had a hard time accepting “all that bashing” from the public and decided to “just end it.”
“Fraternity-related violence has long been a part of the UP culture. The reason why I know that is because I personally know of young men, since I was a freshman in UP in 1991, who underwent the exact same process,” Bautista told this newspaper.
“There has to be a definitive action to finally demolish this culture of impunity,” she added.
This is not the first time that the UP Sigma Rho was called out for being involved in a violent hazing activity. Chris Anthony Mendez died in 2007 after reportedly sustaining localised bleeding based on the medical report of the QCPD.
Another fraternity group, Upsilon Sigma Phi Fraternity, also received public backlash after its members were caught in a brawl inside the premises of the university last year.
The first reported hazing death in the country was of Upsilon’s neophyte member Gonzalo Albert in 1954.
Republic Act 11053, or the “Anti-Hazing Act of 2018,” imposes a penalty of reclusion perpetua and a P3mn fine on those behind hazing activities that will lead to the death, rape or mutilation of a prospective member.
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