A teachers’ group on Sunday, Feb. 19, said that schools in the Philippines should be “capacitated” to fight bullying which has been prevalent among the Filipino youth.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines, in a statement, underscored the urgent need to address the incidents of bullying, especially those that happen inside the schools.

“Our schools are an ideal launching pad to battle bullying in particular, and fighting societal inequality and injustice in general,” ACT said. “Schools should be capacitated to be able to do this task,” it added.

ACT added that education leaders and teachers should also have a “better grasp of the problems so that they can amply teach and guide our learners in objectively analyzing the existing unequal power relations in the society from where bullying is rooted.”

“Our youth should learn to reject these inequalities, and be taught at an early age with the values of respecting human rights and dignity, democracy and justice,” ACT said.

Given this, the group stressed that schools should “walk the talk” by reforming school policies and practices towards democratizing processes and governance.

“Progressive classroom management is essential to break the feudal teacher-student relations,” ACT said.

“Effective anti-bullying systems and support mechanisms such, as reporting and counselling, should be founded on these substantive reforms,” the group added.

Bullying rooted in society with ‘gross inequality, injustice’

Citing a Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, ACT noted that the Philippines “topped a group of 70 countries on the prevalence of youth bullying.”

While PISA’s findings and metrics need better scrutiny, ACT noted that the issue of bullying in school should be “seriously addressed” as studies of the World Health Organization and the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics also indicate high incidence rates of bullying among Filipino youth, at 40 percent among youth aged 13 to 17 and 63 percent among grade 5 students, respectively.

“Bullying in school is a reflection and manifestation of the oppressive power relations that dominates the society,” ACT said. “It is a sorry response of our children and youth to the prevalent social inequalities, chauvinism, machismo and violence that they witness, and many times, experience at home, in schools, in the community, and the society,” it added.

ACT stressed that “bullying cannot be curbed as long as it is seen that the problem is the bullies, instead of the society which created bullies out of our children.”

Given this, the group noted that “bigger and heftier structural changes are needed to shape a society free of exploitation and oppression and treats all humans equal in rights and dignity.”