Anti-bullying measures sought

Following recent bullying incidents highlighted during a Senate hearing on school violence, lawmakers are urging immediate interventions despite a P12 million budget reduction for the Department of Education (DepEd).

In line with this, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian proposed short-term measures including the installation of closed-circuit televisions (CCTV) and the hiring of additional security personnel in public schools.

In a televised interview Wednesday, the lawmaker said that only a small fraction of schools currently have CCTVs.

“And CCTVs also serve as a deterrent to those who want to create problems in school,” he added.

He also reiterated his proposal to ban cellphones in schools, arguing it would prevent the behavior of turning bullying into entertainment.

The Senate hearing addressed incidents such as the recent viral bullying case at Bagong Silangan National High School in Quezon City, where a female student was shoved and had her hair pulled while about eight other students filmed the altercation without intervening.

The senator pointed out that some existing anti-bullying policies are not being fully implemented in public schools, citing the lack of functional anti-bullying councils as a key issue.

“One-fourth of our schools still do not have anti-bullying councils. Guidance counselors are still a problem in our schools; we lack 4,000-plus guidance counselors, so those are the things that we need to address,” he said. “But these are medium-term solutions, but we’re still pushing for that.”

To date, only 966 out of 45,000 public schools have fully functioning Child Protection Committees. These committees, composed of teachers, parents and community members, are mandated to handle bullying cases under Republic Act 10627, the Anti-Bullying Law passed in 2013.