BAGUIO City Mayor Mauricio Domogan recently approved the Anti-Bullying Ordinance of Baguio City passed by the City Council on June 5.
Authored by Vice Mayor Edison Bilog, Ordinance No. 59 series of 2017 seeks to prevent acts of bullying from being committed against students in the city.
Bilog said the measure is a must since incidents of bullying have been very rampant of recent.
“On many occasions, bully-students have been harassing, vexing and even killing other students. These incidents have become alarming as it compromises the emotional, social, and psychological growth of students. Also, it hinders the exercise of the students of their rights to quality education and healthy educational environment. Lastly, it affects the peace and order situation in the City,” Bilog said.
In the ordinance, several acts of bullying were defined.
Cyber-bullying “refers to any acts of bullying which results in harassment, intimidation or humiliation through electronic means or other technology, such as, but not limited to texting, email, instant messaging, chatting, internet, social networking websites or other platforms or formats as per Department of Education Order No. 40 series of 2012.”
Emotional bullying “is manifested through repeated name calling, ignoring a student intentionally, students whispering amongst themselves in front of another student, keeping secrets away from a ‘friend,’ eye-rolling, embarrassing another student based on religion, physical appearance and financial status and silent but hurtful body motions like pointing, signing dirty fingers or face-making. It also includes shouting slanderous statements, directing foul language and profanity and harassing and provoking victims.”
Physical bullying “refers to punching, pushing, showing, kicking, slapping, tinkering, headlocks, school pranks, teasing, fighting and using available weapons, and all other unwanted, sudden physical contact between a bully and a victim leaving the latter defenseless” while psychological bullying “refers to any acts of causing psychological or emotional damage to any pupil or student or learner because of spreading malicious and nasty rumors about them. It includes the experience of being excluded from a group or ‘ganged-up’ on” and sexual bullying is the physical touching of “the private parts like legs, breasts, buttocks, or genitals of the student.”
As decreed, any student or pupil or learner is prohibited from committing any acts of bullying against another pupil or learner or student.
Under the ordinance, the school, college or university is mandated to prevent any acts of bullying inside their school, college or university premises and during school-sanctioned activities. The school, college or university is mandated to act immediately on the complaints of bullying committed by their students and within their premises.
Parents or guardians of the pupils or students, according to the ordinance are also mandated to prevent any acts of bullying inside and outside their school premises. The parent or guardian is mandated to appear before the Child Protection Committee or Anti-Bullying Committee or before the appropriate law enforcement agency when called upon during their investigation.
The ordinance also prohibits school personnel whether teaching or administrative, parents or guardians from instigating, initiating or bringing about acts of bullying among students and from omitting to report any acts of bullying and any person from fabricating any allegations of bullying inside and outside any school, college or university premises.
Under the measure, every school, college or university in the city is mandated to create a Child Protection Committee or Anti-Bullying Committee composed of principal or university president, representative of parents, guidance counselor or its equivalent, student or pupil or learner council president and representative of the teaching or academic staff, and representative from the community as designated by the Village Council for the Protection of Children that will come up with policies to address bullying.
Penalties will also be imposed to those found guilty of bullying. (PR)