Bullies and bullying
Published Jan 7, 2020 12:00 am
THE LEGAL FRONT
By JUSTICE ART D. BRION (RET.)
Justice Art D. Brion (Ret.)
Bullying, to a large extent, owes its recent notoriety to an Ateneo de Manila incident whose video coverage went viral. The incident showed a student, allegedly a taekwondo expert, bullying another; it graphically showed how cruel and demeaning bullying could be. Significantly, while the victim did not fight the bully, he did not surrender either and thus upheld his dignity.
Bullying among students is not a new phenomenon, nor an unknown experience at the Ateneo. Almost 65 years ago, another bullying took place, with a different twist. A classmate took up the victim’s cause and fought the bully, to the defender’s prejudice as he and the bully were both expelled. Several decades later, the expelled defender became President Erap of the Philippines.
Erap was not the only Philippine president who in his younger years stood up to a bully. In the early 70s, our current President, Rodrigo Duterte, stood up to a law school bully and almost missed the Bar examinations because he was not allowed to graduate. Fortunately for him, the school eventually relented, thus allowing him to qualify for the Bar exams.
Bullying, while usual in the school setting, happens everywhere – at work, in the professions, in cyberspace, in politics, or even among nations. It can occur at any setting where a power imbalance exists in a relationship and where the strong demonstrates its strength against the weak, in order to dominate, to intimidate, or to simply avail of the advantages that accompany strength.
Our country – never politically, economically, or militarily dominant – has always been at the receiving end of bullying from the powerful. An early experience came when the Americans, on the pretext of aiding us against Spain, instead opportunistically turned around and simply replaced Spain as our colonizer. History subsequently disclosed that it had wanted all along to have a base in the Far East for its newly developing industries.
When we resisted the colonization, the Americans taught us a lesson now indelibly inked in our national memory. This is the lesson of Samar, in particular, of the town of Balangiga whose townspeople resisted and fell upon the Americans, killing 48 of them in a surprise morning attack.
In response, the American general ordered his soldiers to make Samar a “howling wilderness.” The military burned whole Samar towns in their march across the province, killing men, women, and children over 10 years old. They even took the Balangiga town bells as trophies. One book claims that the Samar campaign signaled the start of American use of torture (among them, the notorious waterboarding) it used a century later on political prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
The recognition of Philippine independence in 1946 did not stop the U.S. from intervening in Philippine affairs. The most recent incident of intimidation is the ban on the grant of U.S. visa to Philippine officials involved in the detention of oppositionist Senator Leila de Lima. Three US senators cite the detention as a violation of human rights, conveniently forgetting that the senator is detained after undergoing judicial process on illegal drugs charges.
True to his past record, President Duterte responded to the senators’ intrusive intimidation by applying the same restrictive measure on the US – a ban on the senators’ entry into the Philippines. The President likewise threatened to impose visa requirements on all US citizens entering the country.
How this confrontation will play out remains to be seen, but it is gratifying to see the weaker side in a confrontation facing the stronger party’s challenge.
But I would deeply grieve if our President would suffer prejudice for standing up for our country. Standing up to bullies is not without its costs as he and Erap learned from experience.
A confrontation that the Philippines has so far lost is on the fishing rights over Scarborough Shoal currently claimed by the Philippines, China, and Taiwan. In the past, the shoal had been a fishing ground commonly enjoyed by both Filipino and Chinese fishermen.
The confrontation led to tension in the area and even threatened to affect commercial ties between the two countries. After failed diplomatic efforts that were allegedly bungled by our side, the Chinese occupied Scarborough Shoal and have since then been controlling Filipino fishermen’s access to this rich fishing ground.
A Philippine response was to bring China to arbitration before the Permanent Court of Arbitration on the Scarborough Shoal issue, among others. The arbitration panel recognized the issue, as well as the question of whether China should desist from its unlawful claims and activities.
Without ruling on rights over the land territory, the arbitrators ruled that China has no historical rights over Scarborough Shoal and the maritime area claimed in its “nine-dash line” map; Scarborough Shoal is a rock that cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of its own and accordingly is not entitled to an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf. They further ruled that China has unlawfully prevented Filipino fishermen from engaging in traditional fishing at Scarborough Shoal.
In short, the Philippines won in the arbitration, but China has refused to recognize the proceedings and to be bound by its ruling. At the same time, it started establishing military installations in other disputed areas.
Thus, China – the politically and militarily stronger party – has simply brushed aside the Philippine response to its bullying.
These incidents from politically and militarily stronger nations will not be the last that our country will see. Bullying by the strong over the weak has existed in the whole of recorded history. As the President has expressed, there is nothing much we can effectively do now because we are weak, but we should not surrender.
Perhaps a twist of fate will intervene as had happened to the Ateneo bullying victim more than 60 years ago. But we can never bank on this kind of intervention or assistance. We can and should only rely on ourselves and on nobody else, as we painfully learned during our revolution against Spain.
Ultimately, we must realize that we need to be strong to avoid being a pushover in the family of nations. Deficiency in strength is a problem we have to continually confront and overcome.
We cannot find strength when we ourselves are always divided, when the strength we seek is only among ourselves in our infernal political battles.
Is it in our national character to act beyond the corrosive politics that has historically bedeviled our march to progress?
Only you, me, and the Filipino nation can answer this. The time to act has come.
[email protected]
Justice Art D. Brion (Ret.)
Bullying, to a large extent, owes its recent notoriety to an Ateneo de Manila incident whose video coverage went viral. The incident showed a student, allegedly a taekwondo expert, bullying another; it graphically showed how cruel and demeaning bullying could be. Significantly, while the victim did not fight the bully, he did not surrender either and thus upheld his dignity.
Bullying among students is not a new phenomenon, nor an unknown experience at the Ateneo. Almost 65 years ago, another bullying took place, with a different twist. A classmate took up the victim’s cause and fought the bully, to the defender’s prejudice as he and the bully were both expelled. Several decades later, the expelled defender became President Erap of the Philippines.
Erap was not the only Philippine president who in his younger years stood up to a bully. In the early 70s, our current President, Rodrigo Duterte, stood up to a law school bully and almost missed the Bar examinations because he was not allowed to graduate. Fortunately for him, the school eventually relented, thus allowing him to qualify for the Bar exams.
Bullying, while usual in the school setting, happens everywhere – at work, in the professions, in cyberspace, in politics, or even among nations. It can occur at any setting where a power imbalance exists in a relationship and where the strong demonstrates its strength against the weak, in order to dominate, to intimidate, or to simply avail of the advantages that accompany strength.
Our country – never politically, economically, or militarily dominant – has always been at the receiving end of bullying from the powerful. An early experience came when the Americans, on the pretext of aiding us against Spain, instead opportunistically turned around and simply replaced Spain as our colonizer. History subsequently disclosed that it had wanted all along to have a base in the Far East for its newly developing industries.
When we resisted the colonization, the Americans taught us a lesson now indelibly inked in our national memory. This is the lesson of Samar, in particular, of the town of Balangiga whose townspeople resisted and fell upon the Americans, killing 48 of them in a surprise morning attack.
In response, the American general ordered his soldiers to make Samar a “howling wilderness.” The military burned whole Samar towns in their march across the province, killing men, women, and children over 10 years old. They even took the Balangiga town bells as trophies. One book claims that the Samar campaign signaled the start of American use of torture (among them, the notorious waterboarding) it used a century later on political prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
The recognition of Philippine independence in 1946 did not stop the U.S. from intervening in Philippine affairs. The most recent incident of intimidation is the ban on the grant of U.S. visa to Philippine officials involved in the detention of oppositionist Senator Leila de Lima. Three US senators cite the detention as a violation of human rights, conveniently forgetting that the senator is detained after undergoing judicial process on illegal drugs charges.
True to his past record, President Duterte responded to the senators’ intrusive intimidation by applying the same restrictive measure on the US – a ban on the senators’ entry into the Philippines. The President likewise threatened to impose visa requirements on all US citizens entering the country.
How this confrontation will play out remains to be seen, but it is gratifying to see the weaker side in a confrontation facing the stronger party’s challenge.
But I would deeply grieve if our President would suffer prejudice for standing up for our country. Standing up to bullies is not without its costs as he and Erap learned from experience.
A confrontation that the Philippines has so far lost is on the fishing rights over Scarborough Shoal currently claimed by the Philippines, China, and Taiwan. In the past, the shoal had been a fishing ground commonly enjoyed by both Filipino and Chinese fishermen.
The confrontation led to tension in the area and even threatened to affect commercial ties between the two countries. After failed diplomatic efforts that were allegedly bungled by our side, the Chinese occupied Scarborough Shoal and have since then been controlling Filipino fishermen’s access to this rich fishing ground.
A Philippine response was to bring China to arbitration before the Permanent Court of Arbitration on the Scarborough Shoal issue, among others. The arbitration panel recognized the issue, as well as the question of whether China should desist from its unlawful claims and activities.
Without ruling on rights over the land territory, the arbitrators ruled that China has no historical rights over Scarborough Shoal and the maritime area claimed in its “nine-dash line” map; Scarborough Shoal is a rock that cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of its own and accordingly is not entitled to an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf. They further ruled that China has unlawfully prevented Filipino fishermen from engaging in traditional fishing at Scarborough Shoal.
In short, the Philippines won in the arbitration, but China has refused to recognize the proceedings and to be bound by its ruling. At the same time, it started establishing military installations in other disputed areas.
Thus, China – the politically and militarily stronger party – has simply brushed aside the Philippine response to its bullying.
These incidents from politically and militarily stronger nations will not be the last that our country will see. Bullying by the strong over the weak has existed in the whole of recorded history. As the President has expressed, there is nothing much we can effectively do now because we are weak, but we should not surrender.
Perhaps a twist of fate will intervene as had happened to the Ateneo bullying victim more than 60 years ago. But we can never bank on this kind of intervention or assistance. We can and should only rely on ourselves and on nobody else, as we painfully learned during our revolution against Spain.
Ultimately, we must realize that we need to be strong to avoid being a pushover in the family of nations. Deficiency in strength is a problem we have to continually confront and overcome.
We cannot find strength when we ourselves are always divided, when the strength we seek is only among ourselves in our infernal political battles.
Is it in our national character to act beyond the corrosive politics that has historically bedeviled our march to progress?
Only you, me, and the Filipino nation can answer this. The time to act has come.
[email protected]