Inspite of anti-bullying rules and campaigns, bullying is still rampant, especially in children and teens in school.

Last week, the cast of "Gluta" had a presscon to promote the movie. Written and directed by the brilliant Darryl Yap, "Gluta" is about an aeta who dreams of becoming a beauty queen but battles a lot of bullying because of her color.

So I asked the cast if they had their own share of memories of being bullied. I was very shocked at the story of Ella Cruz: “Yes, I was bullied twice. I was walking down the school hallway and a girl just slapped me out of nowhere. When I asked why she slapped me, she said – 'wala lang.' Then in another instance, while I was walking in the same hallway, a group of girls just came up to me and ganged up on me saying mean words. Honestly, I really don’t want to look back at those painful memories. I  don’t even want to remember them! But now it made me realize that those memories made me stronger, and it pushed me to what I am today.  Somehow I am thankful to those girls. They pushed me to become successful because I told myself that I will work hard, so they can see that  I am not just some girl they can bully. But I never planned any revenge.” 

Playing Ella’s onscreen sweetheart in the movie is Marco Gallo who is half Italian and half Filipino. “I grew up in Italy and growing up, I was the only half Asian kid that did not look like all my classmates, so you can imagine all the bullying I was getting. I was the thin and lanky Asian in an all-Italian school so of course I will be bullied.” 

“Gluta” also stars Juliana Parizcova Segovia who plays Ella’s aeta uncle who is secretly gay and secretly uses glutathione to become whiter. “I cannot count how many bullies I have had every time I would join and win beauty pageants, whether it be a barangay pageant or a national one. It seems that they cannot accept a gay with this kind of face to win a beauty pageant.” 

Jobelyn Manuel and Loren Montemayor, who have been working with Direk Darryl Yap in his controversial episodes of Vincentiments on Facebook and YouTube, also shared moments of bullying but not the actual one but cyber-bullying. But the two just learned to brush them away and not be affected in time. 

I guess that’s the secret - not to be affected by mean words or actions. I, too, had my share of being bullied. If I got affected with what the mean girls in my exclusive school told me that I did not belong there because I was poor, I would have asked my mom to pull me out. But just like the cast members of "Gluta," I brushed the mean comments away and ended up a stronger person.  

Catch the comedy drama, “Gluta” on July 2, 2021 only on the Vivamax streaming app. Available online at web.vivamax.net or download the app on Google play store for android users and App store for ios users.  You can also purchase Vivamax vouchers in Shopee and Lazada  for only P149 a month or P399 for 3 months.