My question really is to the teachers of those kids, both bully and bullied: no one noticed the dynamic was different in relation to that bully? No one saw how the other kids would react to being grouped with him for projects, or being told they had to partner with him for anything? No one saw how the other kids would avoid the bully, or would get nervous, or would not look him in the eye? No one saw that kid and thought, hmmmm, he seems to be more yabang than the others, we wonder if that means anything? No teacher, across all the subjects, discussed with the other teachers if they noticed anything in relation to the kid who turned out to be bully?

Halfway through a semester in a college classroom, you tend to already see the dynamic of the collective, you see the students who dominate the activities and discussions, as you see those who decide not to engage, as you see those who try with all their might to participate no matter how scared or insecure they might be. We’re talking seeing kids, twice, three times a week. I cannot imagine teaching in high school, where you see these kids day-in, day-out, and not be able to see the dynamic of power that exists among the students you gather in the classroom.

My sense of being teacher is so informed by the time I spent teaching freshman English and literature in this same institution, where I learned about cura personalis (personal care) which required that we had a sense of what else our students were doing outside of the classroom — from the other classes they were taking that semester, to extra curricular activities, to whether they are scholars or not, whether they are away from home or not, whether they are school athletes or not.

It took a while to learn to care this much — I come from UP where it’s sink or swim after all — but once I got the hang of it, I realized that it also helped teachers acknowledge when the work in our classes might be too much, and how we might adjust given other pressures students might face. It also forces us to see the class as a collective made up of individuals, it allows us to see when someone might be ostracized or disenfranchised, in the same way that we keep an eye out for the ones who might be taking on a superior position relative to the collective.

This is of course my roundabout way of pointing out that institutionally, there was something wrong in the way this was handled. And it’s not even just the lack of a real communications team that knew to handle this situation with better-written and thought-of public statements that would arrest the situation instead of making it worse for all those concerned. It’s also the refusal to acknowledge that the institution must take responsibility, and its members held accountable, for multiple cases of bullying. It means telling us all that there were safeguards, teachers, and administrators that failed in seeing this early enough and arresting the situation. It means holding the institution accountable, too.

Here’s where the public announcements and statements about what the institution is doing becomes tricky: now that you’ve fallen into the trap of updating the public about how you’re handling the situation, the questions do not stop with just deciding to dismiss the bully from your school. In fact, the questions continue, and these become more and more valid as we sit on this longer, think about it with more calm and quiet, and less of the online noise.

This is the thing with public statements that decide to engage the public outcry: it becomes as small-minded and as petty as the criticism is receives. Had the institution decided to already take this to the level of institutional responsibility and held the bigger fish — teachers, administrators, parents — accountable, then the discussion would also be brought to a level that did not spiral down to bullying the bully, or releasing false addresses, or daring the bully’s father to a fistfight. It could’ve, instead, been a conversation about the law and its implementation, school policy and best practices, privacy and videos, online mobs and kuyog.

Ah, but it’s too late, isn’t it? And so here we are with not much else but three statements from one school, a dismissal, an injured student, countless others — if not a whole batch — emotionally traumatized, and a Malacañang spokesperson taking the moral high ground and saying that the bullying incident should be investigated — this is the same man who speaks for and protects the President, who is the biggest bully of all.

What a way to end the year. And start a new one.