Vlogger couple fight for safer schools, stricter penalties for bullying

NAGA CITY – When Ruben Joseph Dimaandal, 39, entered the gates of the school in Daet, Camarines Norte to fetch his two children after their classes last 8 July, he did not know he was walking into a parent’s worst nightmare.

He said he first saw his 16-year-old daughter coming towards him, distressed and panicked.

“She said, ‘Papa, it’s kuya. You have to see him’,” Dimaandal, the other half of the content-creator couple behind Tricycle Diaries, said in an online interview 25 September.

He said when they found his son Lukas Wade, 17, his head was bowed and he was holding his face. Later at the hospital, the doctor told him his son suffered severe damage to his front upper teeth and gums and swelling in his lower jaw due to blunt-force trauma.

“Another kid hit him with a motorcycle helmet with such force. It was premeditated. I know it was premeditated. They have been bullying him for a while before that incident. They made fun of him,” Dimaandal said.

He said when he confronted his son’s teacher, he learned that Lukas had suffered in silence with his injuries for four hours before classes ended. He added that after the attack, the school clinic only gave his child a bottle with ice to hold against his mouth and jaw then he was told to rejoin the class.

“Imagine that. They didn’t even call us to tell us what happened,” he said.

“We homeschooled our son for seven years so he could be safe. This was his first year back to school,” Ma. Rosanna, 37, Lukas Wade’s mother, said.

She said their son fought to live at the hospital during the first 43 days of his life due to pulmonary hypertension. He survived but the ailment caused him to develop attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism, she added.

The Dimaandals declined to name the school in order to avoid complicating the investigation.

School handbook

The “bully,” another 17-year-old, was Lukas Wade’s classmate in grade 11.

Dimaandal said the boy only received a three-day suspension and was made to do some cleaning in the school campus. The distraught father was told the punishment was in accordance with school policy that was in the handbook.

This lack of proper action from the school prompted the couple to use their platform to raise awareness on their son’s case. They transformed the travel and lifestyle Facebook page into a crusade for justice.

Their viral videos and Lukas Wade’s story became the basis for House Bill 10543 (Safe Schools and Violence Prevention Act of 2026), filed by House Assistant Minority Leader and Bagong Henerasyon party-list Rep. Robert Nazal.

The Dimaandals said that among the issues they encountered while seeking for action over the attack on their son was the Department of Education’s (DepEd) decision to not interfere in the case because it involves a private school.

Nazal’s proposed law, once passed, will establish a unified National Safe Schools Framework to prevent, protect, prepare for, respond to, and recover from bullying, armed attacks, dangerous intrusions, and other threats in public and private basic, higher, and technical-vocational schools, jointly formulated by DepEd, Commission on Higher Education, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

Its core mandates include annual safety risk assessments and institutional School Safety and Emergency Preparedness Plans, multidisciplinary threat assessment and intervention teams, confidential reporting channels for students and witnesses, mandatory immediate medical care, parent notification within 15 minutes of incidents, proper record preservation, and external reviews for severe cases.

Helpless

The couple said they also brought the incident to the attention of local police after their request for the attacker’s expulsion was denied by the school and the meetings with the boy’s parents, the school administrators and management, and DepEd failed to produce any good result.

The Daet police, when asked for comment regarding the case on 5 October, declined to give any pending investigations.

“Since we started posting his story, lots of parents have messaged us, telling us about their kids who were also bullied. They related to our situation because like us, they also felt helpless, that they couldn’t do anything for their children,” Dimaandal said.

He said until now, Lukas Wade is afraid of coming back to school.

“Whenever we happen to drive by the school, he would sit back into the cushions and close his eyes tightly,” the father said.

Ma. Rosanna said even their daughter is traumatized and would not return to school. Their daughter told them she witnessed the same boy, who attacked Lukas Wade, and his friends manipulate, humiliate, and verbally abuse her brother in class several times.

Dimaandal said, although Lukas Wade’s injuries are already fully healed, they will not stop seeking justice. They continue to post on Tricyle Diaries, trying to keep Lukas Wade’s case in the public’s algorithm.

They hope that by telling their story, they will raise more awareness about bullying and violence in schools, one reel or video at a time.