EVEN granting for the sake of argument that he is a bully, it still does not help anybody to politicize bullying by insinuating that it is spawned by President Duterte’s bully tactics. All of us know bullies have long been a problem for elementary and high schools, Catholic, non-sectarian or otherwise. Some of us would also know that bullies are products of homes that hold dear the best and worst of society’s values.

I just, for instance, overheard my son, an Ateneo graduate, tell somebody over the phone that there was bullying in Ateneo comfort rooms when he was in high school. Worse cases of bullying have most probably happened before and also in other schools. The big difference is there were no cellphones then to video such ugly incidents and no social media to go viral on.

Viral or not the bully has to be penalized for his unacceptable social behavior. Ateneo is right to expel the bully as it probably has quietly done before to other bullies when social media was not around to foment righteous anger from the whole world. The news report, however, did not mention any penalty to the video-taker and to those who just stood there and watched the bully do his thing.

The video-taker and/or whoever made it go viral should also be penalized as a warning to others that it is wrong to violate a person’s privacy. Somebody’s right to be rescued or kept away from harm was also violated. Hence, those who just coldly looked on but did not bother to help should at least be reprimanded and told it is wrong not to help people in distress. This becomes more imperative when we consider that Ateneo is a school that promotes the virtue of love of neighbor. Or does it?

Setting aside political bias, if anybody is to blame it is the parents, some of whom encourage bully behavior while others make bullies of their children by comparing them with others and pressuring them to excel.

Males are psychologically programmed to be dominant. If they do not have the the brains and/or the wealth to dominate they look to substitute these inadequate sources of dominance with superior physical strength. That’s why bullies are usually bigger than their victims.

(The same principle works when a woman weds a man who is her inferior in emotional and intellectual maturity, in job rank and earning capacity, etc. Before long he will become violent, his superior physical strength being his last remaining source of dominance.)

We don’t really know if there are more bullies and if they bully more now. We only know videos of bullying go viral like never before. The fact remains that a core unit of society, the family, is what breeds a bully who, therefore, is ultimately society’s child and responsibility.