Gatchalian

‘Bullying’ in schools alarms solons

February 15, 2023 Camille P. Balagtas 401 views

LGBTQIA youth among the victims

SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian is urging the Department of Education (DepEd) to improve its mechanisms for the reporting of “bullying” cases in the country’s schools.

Gatchalian pointed to the discrepancies in the DepEd’s data and the findings of large-scale international assessments which, according to the senator, points to a large number of unreported cases.

In a Senate panel hearing that reviewed the implementation of the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013 – Republic Act (RA) No. 10627, DepEd reported that bullying cases have been on the rise since School Year (SY) 2014-2015 when there were 5,624 cases reported.

The highest number of cases was recorded in SY 2018-2019, when figures reached 21,521.

The number dropped to 11,637 for SY 2019-2020, possibly due to the shift to distance learning from face-to-face classes.

Gatchalian cited the results of the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) when the Philippines got the highest percentage of 15-year-old learners out of 79 countries who reported experiencing bullying at least a few times a month.

Based on the study’s results, 65% of learners reported experiencing being “bullied.”

The 2019 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) also revealed that 62.5% of the country’s Grade 5 learners reported experiencing bullying.

Compared to other Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines’ Grade 5 learners are the “most exposed to bullying.”

“If you look at PISA and SEA-PLM figures, we’re talking about more than 60%, 11,000 is not even one percent of the total student population, so merong discrepancy. If you look at DepEd’s numbers, ang layo. What the large-scale examinations are saying is that it’s up to 65%, so if we convert that to the student population, we’re talking about up to 17.5 million students as opposed to 11,000, so how do we reconcile that?” Gatchalian observed.

“The first order of business is to improve mechanisms for reporting because there are many students who are not reporting, who are scared of reporting, and we can see that there’s a disparity between what is being gathered in large-scale international assessments and what’s on the ground, and that leads me to a conclusion that our units on the ground are not functioning,” Gatchalian said.

For Sen. Risa Hontiveros, it is high time that this bullying must end, citing that other sectors of society are also victims of these kinds of abuse.

Hontiveros revealed that the data on bullying among the youth has been extremely alarming, “even more so as gender-based or SOGIE (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression) bullying has been clearly established as one of the major causes.”

“Therefore, just as bullying and [the] mental health of our children is non-debatable priorities for Congress, then, it is just as important to acknowledge the struggles of our LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and more) youth,” she said.

Hontiveros said the focus on protecting against this kind of bullying must consider other members of society.

“This is one of the reasons I filed the SOGIE Equality bill – to protect these vulnerable youth. We cannot solve bullying and enhance mental health without making these basic protections for our children explicit in our laws,” Hontiveros stressed.

In SY 2021-2022 alone, DepEd reported 7,800 cases of gender-based bullying.

The Inter-agency Task Team on Young Key Populations, or vulnerable youth aged 10-24, conducted a South East Asian regional survey, including the Philippines, on Stigma, Discrimination, and Gender-based violence in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The results showed that 40% of the LGBTQIA+ youth respondents reported that they had faced gender-based violence, and 50% reported that they had suffered stigma and discrimination during the pandemic.

Another study by Galang Philippines in 2015 shows that 18% of the LGBTQIA+ community averaging 24 years old, attempted suicide. Suicide rates have drastically risen among the youth in general since then.

“The numbers are telling a clear-cut story. If we say we are concerned about the future of our youth, then we should heed the data. As long as we are in denial, our children will continue to suffer the long-term consequences,” Hontiveros pointed out.