A letter to the public schools

Ijust want to address this letter to all public schools in our city specifically.

My son studied at Davao City National High School when he was in first year. This was in year 2014. During the first two months in his freshman year, he didn’t tell me any problem about his studies. It was in August of the same year that he once told me that he is being bullied at class. I asked him what kind of bullying did he receive from his classmates. He told me he was being called names like baboy, taba, tabatchoy and the like. I treated it as a “childish” bullying that my son should not care to listen to. Until October, 2014 came. His teacher/adviser called me to tell me that my child has already stopped attending school since mid-August yet.

I asked my son why he stopped going to school. His reply was heart-piercing for a parent like me: “Dili nako ganahan mu-eskwela kay gina-bully lagi ko (I don’t want to go to school because I’m always being bullied).”

I and my husband, together with my son, immediately went to school the following day to meet with his teacher/ adviser. Surely, we were attended to by his teacher/adviser. His teacher asked him what kind of bullying did he receive from his classmates and who were the bullies. He told the teacher that he was given names he didn’t like to be called. His teacher only told him “mao ra na unya di na ka mu-eskwela?” , which was

I also concurred at that time.

Until I read the news that DCNHS, my beloved Alma Mater, is on the hot seat again for bullying issue. This time, after almost 4 years since my son stopped stepping foot at that school, I asked my son what was the real issue all about when he was still at DCNHS (since I transferred him to another public high school just to calm his mind and so that he would continue his studies).

He said his classmates always bully him and when he tells his teacher about it, or what we call “tug-an” or “sumbong”, his teacher would just say that “pagsinumbagay lang mo sa gawas unya pag gawasan na!”

I was shocked. My son didn’t tell me everything. I told him why he didn’t tell me this when he was still at DCNHS? He said “para unsa pa?” He even recalled an incident they witnessed together with his whole classmates an act of “ganging-up” or “gitabangan ug kulata” by a group of teenage boys (he wasn’t sure if they were students of DCNHS or of other schools or if they were students at all and not just pretending to be students by wearing uniform) inside the school campus. One of his boy classmates was mauled by a group of school uniform-wearing teenage boys. They asked their subject teacher at that time that they be allowed to go out because they will assist or aid their classmate. But the teacher refused and told them to let those group of boys be (pasagdan lang daw sila). My son said some of his boy classmates went outside the room without their subject teacher’s permission and aided their classmate who was being mauled. That was the only time the group of boys (the one who mauled their classmate) was dispersed.

I was aghast. Is it what my beloved Alma Mater came to be? What are the teachers afraid of? Why can’t they come to aid a student who are being ganged up on? Were they able to attend antibullying in school seminars?

During my time at the DCNHS, we didn’t have school guards. We only had a prefect of discipline whom we call that time as “Commandant”. But all of us were afraid of him. I couldn’t recall any ganging up incident inside the school premise nor outside but in view of teacher/s. We can just hear riots done by our schoolmates but in areas very far from the school.

I am not saying that my son dropped out of DCNHS because of the teacher’s fault alone. I also acknowledge my mistake, my wrong of not coming to my son’s aid when he most needed me. I thought he was just being childish at that time. I forgot how bullying, however minor we think it is, can affect our child emotionally and mentally.

Fighting or doing something against bullying is not a job of teachers alone, nor parents alone. This is a joint effort by all who are concerned. And all of us must be concerned.

May the schools strengthen their anti-bullying efforts. May the parents heed their children’s call for attention no matter how minute we think the issues are. May the security personnel, the law enforcers and lawmakers act on bullying now and not just sweep the issue under the rug. We were once children too, we know how scary it is to be bullied, how much more being ganged up on.

Concerned parent