Built in Silence, Revealed in Violence
Within the span of seven days late last June, the nation erupted with the occurrence of three incidents of school violence, each a case of student-to-student assault. Just a few days after the third incident, another school was evacuated due to a shooting threat. All of these may seem like isolated events, but a possible common thread runs through them: bullying.
According to Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla, preliminary investigations suggested that bullying may have contributed to the Tacloban school shooting last June 8. Weeks later, the shooting threat in Batangas was allegedly made by a student who had also been bullied. These incidents may simply be the visible effects of a much larger problem within the country, which has begun to feel the weight of a label it’s had for years: the “bullying capital of the world.”
When you ask someone what bullying looks like, they’ll probably describe a scene that seems to have come straight out of a movie — a brawny student approaching a smaller one, fists ready. But rarely is life as dramatic as the big screen. The numbers tell a much different story. In the Philippines, 86% of those who have been bullied reported that they experienced verbal abuse with 50% reported experiencing social bullying. Meanwhile, only 42% and 33% reported encountering physical bullying and cyberbullying, respectively.
Bullying, as defined by the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013, is “any severe or repeated use by one or more students of a written, verbal or electronic expression, or a physical act or gesture” that causes physical or emotional harm. But it often doesn’t start out that way. MGC New Life Christian Academy’s (MGCNLCA) Anti-Bullying Policy was recently updated to account for this, recognizing that bullying tends to build gradually through small actions that may initially seem harmless but have the potential to escalate. It can start with small jokes between two friends or perhaps that offhand comment you quickly forget about but lasts in the receiver’s mind long after it was spoken aloud. It can start with that silence that follows when someone enters the classroom or the group chat without a certain person in it. Those things that are dismissed as small don’t often stay small for long.
It’s clear that bullying is something that needs to be taken seriously, but it’s easy—and even, sometimes, more comfortable—for us to dismiss its precursors. And that dismissal carries a lesson of its own: that apathy is acceptable, while kindness is simply optional. Sometimes, bullying isn’t just dismissed by everyone else; it’s dismissed even by the person experiencing it, especially when it comes from people they’re close to. Even with the absence of malicious intent, ignorance is no excuse. Though only few start out intentionally wanting to hurt others, that doesn’t lessen the responsibility nor erase the reality of the harm caused.
On top of that, according to MGCNLCA Guidance and Testing Center Head Daphne Trina Uang, bystanders are equally as liable as the bullies. A study in the Philippines found that for every 10 students, roughly one is a bully, two are victims, and the overwhelming majority of seven are bystanders. Bystanders have the biggest potential to change the situation for the better or for the worse, yet most of them simply choose to stay silent. Silence, however, is not neutral; it’s a choice—and for most students, it’s the one being made.
Bullying is not a problem that we can solve on our own. It takes the community as a whole to come together and decide that it is something that will no longer be tolerated within our circles. Just as bullying starts with small actions, so does fighting against it. Maybe it starts with one less joke at somebody else’s expense. Maybe it starts with the courage to talk to a classmate you don’t really know. In this world that’s already filled with loud opinions and quick judgments, maybe the best thing we can do is to simply listen and be kind.
