Watching that disturbing video of a Filipino middle school boy threatening, insulting and beating up a terrified fellow student inside a school toilet, in a brazen display of bullying power, struck me in a way that I could not fully understand. I had to review the video a number of times to grasp what it was that made it specially chilling to watch.
Finally, on perhaps the seventh or eighth replay, it dawned on me: The bully was not only aware that the entire encounter was being recorded. He, in fact, also seemed like he was performing for an imagined audience of anonymous voyeurs. At one point, he brashly faced the camera, as though to address the gallery, and went on to describe in a cold measured tone what options he was offering to his prey — a beating or a rite of degradation (that included kissing his genitals).
yesterday on facebook i posted: “what disturbs me most about the ateneo bullying videos is how other atenistas just stood by and allowed the attacks to happen. #AteneoEpicFail”
MANOLO QUEZON: “Bully nation”
https://opinion.inquirer.net/118406/bully-nation
MARICHU VILLANUEVA: “Second chances”
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2018/12/26/1879845/second-chances
JOJO ROBLES: “Ateneo dodges bullet”
https://www.manilatimes.net/ateneo-dodges-bullet/487988/
KATRINA SS: “Where were the teachers?”
https://katrinasantiago.com/where-were-the-teachers/