Ateneo kicks out bully in videos

Ateneo de Manila University has kicked out the junior high school student seen in viral videos bullying another student.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Jesuit priest Jose Ramon Villarin, the school president, said that after a “thorough investigation” involving all concerned parties, the university administration decided to dismiss the student, reportedly a taekwondo gold medalist.

“The decision of the administration is to impose the penalty of dismissal on the student caught bullying another student in the comfort room of the school,” Villarin said.

“This means that he is no longer allowed to come back to … Ateneo,” he added.

Villarin said the parents of both students had been informed of the decision.

Further investigation

He said further investigation was under way, “as there are other matters involved in the incident.”

It was unclear which punishment provided for by the Department of Education (DepEd) manual for private schools had been meted out to the student, as there is no provision for “dismissal.”

The manual lists four categories of administrative penalties — suspension, preventive suspension, exclusion and expulsion.

Expulsion, the most severe, bars an erring student from being admitted into “any public or private school in the Philippines,” and is considered so grave that any school imposing it must first secure the approval of the education secretary.

Villarin appeared eager to parry accusations that Ateneo had lax antibullying policies, stating at one point that the school was “very clear on its stand against bullying,” and that related policies and processes had long been codified in the student handbook.

He also announced the creation of a task force whose role would be to “conduct a comprehensive study of the current situation, ensure an independent audit of our present measures and systems, and promptly recommend to [the] administration how we can create a safer and bully-free environment.”

Rise above the fray

Villarin also seemed to recognize that public reaction to the incident had crystallized into heated and harmful rhetoric days before Christmas, and spent the latter half of his statement appealing to those affected to rise above the fray.

“We have the power to amplify the pain by simply fanning the flames of hatred and violence, by fighting fire with fire. Our young ones cannot escape all this unscathed. They are the ones most wounded by our violent words and example,” he said.

Framing the community response to the incident as one that would ultimately shape the  children’s future, he added: “We can summon the courage to stop fighting one another. We have that power, too. We can begin by refusing to add fuel to the fire and helping our children and one another heal.”

Gaps in antibullying law

Amid public outrage over the incident, Sen. Grace Poe on Sunday called on her colleagues to revisit the antibullying law and amend it to close gaps, especially on the role of schools in dealing with bullies.

In a statement, Poe said the controversy at Ateneo showed the need to strengthen the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013.

“Anyone who has the video of the violent bullying incident would understand that bullying is a despicable act that insults our humanity,” said Poe, a vice chair of the Senate public order committee.

“There is an antibully law in place. However, we believe it should be strengthened to require concrete and timely action from schools,” she said.

Too much discretion

Poe said the law gave school administrators too much discretion on when to act on bullying.

“It leaves it up to them to determine whether appropriate action can be taken,” she said.

“This is why in the current case, even with the numerous videos that have come out, police are saying that they have to wait for Ateneo to notify them and seek their help,” Poe said.

On Friday, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and  Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC) called on schools throughout the Philippines to fully enforce the antibullying law.

The CWC, an interagency body that coordinates the enforcement of law for the rights and welfare of children, said in a statement that Ateneo should thoroughly investigate the incident to root out “the underlying reasons for the act committed by a child.”

In a separate statement, the CHR said bullying was “not a simple issue” that involved only the victims and their families.