When Technicalities Become Excuses: Bullying Is More Than a Legal Checklist

There is one thing worth conceding at the beginning: not every fight, insult, argument, or act of aggression between students is automatically bullying. Schools have a responsibility to investigate incidents fairly, protect the child reporting harm, and respect the due-process rights of the student being accused. But there is a dangerous difference between demanding careful investigation and using technical definitions to minimize what children experience.

That difference becomes apparent in the opinion that school principals themselves are partly responsible for the problem because they supposedly label incidents as bullying too quickly.

“Minsan, kasalanan din ng mga school principal. Bakit? Ang bullying ay nagiging bullying lang kung present ang apat na elements na 'yan.” (Sometimes, school principals are also at fault. Why? Bullying only becomes bullying if those four elements are present.)

The argument sounds reasonable until reporting is confused with adjudication.

Under Republic Act No. 10627, or the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013, schools are required to establish procedures for students, parents, teachers, and others to report bullying or retaliation. The law then separately requires schools to promptly investigate those reports.

That distinction matters.

A report is not a conviction.

When a principal reports an alleged bullying incident, that does not necessarily mean the school has already determined that bullying occurred. It means an incident serious enough to raise a bullying concern has been brought to the proper authorities and must now be investigated.

The proper sequence is simple: report, investigate, determine.

Requiring schools to determine conclusively that every legal element exists before reporting a suspected case turns the process backward. Investigation is precisely how those facts are supposed to be established.

There is, however, a legitimate lesson here for schools: language matters. Saying “a confirmed case of bullying occurred” before completing an investigation could prejudge the respondent. Saying “an alleged bullying incident has been reported and is under investigation” does not.

The opinion then becomes considerably more troubling when it attempts to define severity.

“Hindi natanggal 'yung tenga? 'Yun ang severe. Nasugatan? That is severe. Nabagok 'yung ulo? That is severe.” (Was an ear torn off? That is severe. Was the student wounded? That is severe. Was the student’s head injured? That is severe.)

If that is supposed to establish the threshold for serious bullying, then we should ask a disturbing question: How badly does a child have to be hurt before adults decide the harm is real?

RA 10627 does not restrict bullying to injuries that can be photographed in a clinic.

The statute expressly covers severe or repeated conduct that causes physical or emotional harm, creates reasonable fear of physical or emotional harm, creates a hostile environment, infringes on a student’s rights, substantially disrupts education, or damages a student’s psychological or emotional well-being.

A child therefore does not need a bloody nose, fractured bone, concussion, or “missing ear” before adults are permitted to take the situation seriously.

Words can be weapons too.

The law itself recognizes acts such as name-calling, tormenting, threatening, and making negative comments about another student’s appearance or body. Cyberbullying further demonstrates why visible physical injury cannot possibly be the only meaningful measure of severity. A humiliating photograph, fabricated rumor, threatening group chat, or viral post may leave no bruise whatsoever while causing enormous psychological damage.

The next claim is even more categorical.

“Hindi naman bullying, minsan lang ginawa eh.” (It isn’t bullying because it was only done once.)

That is not what the statutory language says.

RA 10627 uses the phrase “severe or repeated.”

The word or matters.

If repetition were mandatory in every case, the law could have said “severe and repeated.” It did not. A sufficiently severe incident can therefore potentially satisfy the statutory definition even if it happened only once, depending on its nature, circumstances, and effects.

This does not mean every isolated incident becomes bullying. It means the opposite claim, that something cannot be bullying merely because it happened once, is also too simplistic.

Then comes another claim:

“Was there a specific target? Otherwise, it’s not bullying. If it’s isolated.” (Was there a specific target? Otherwise, it isn’t bullying if it is isolated.)

Bullying certainly involves conduct directed toward another student, but again, the analysis cannot end with one convenient checklist. Context matters. Conduct matters. Harm matters. The circumstances surrounding the students matter.

What becomes especially concerning is the attempt to use school attendance as evidence against bullying.

“Did the child drop out? E araw-araw pa rin namang pumapasok. Paano naging bullying 'yun?” (Did the child drop out? The child is still attending school every day. How can that be bullying?)

This is perhaps the weakest argument of all.

Since when did attendance become a psychological examination?

A bullied student can still attend class.

A depressed student can still attend class.

A terrified student can still attend class.

A child can sit quietly in the second row, complete assignments, take examinations, smile when called by a teacher, and still dread every recess period because the same classmates are waiting outside.

Children do not need to drop out before suffering becomes legitimate.

Indeed, one of the responsibilities of a school is to intervene before bullying becomes so severe that the child stops attending altogether. Waiting for dropout as proof of harm is like refusing to investigate smoke until the entire building is burning.

The opinion then turns to power imbalance.

“Meron bang power imbalance? Yung offender ba mas mayaman? Mas malaki? Mas matanda? Mas marami ba sila?” (Was there a power imbalance? Was the offender richer? Bigger? Older? Were there more of them?)

This part requires nuance because power imbalance is genuinely important in the scientific literature on bullying. International research commonly distinguishes bullying from ordinary peer aggression through concepts including intentionality, repetition, harm, and an imbalance of power.

But power is far more complicated than height, age, wealth, or numerical superiority.

A physically smaller student can possess enormous social power over another child. A popular student may mobilize an entire friend group. Someone may possess embarrassing photographs or private messages. A student may command thousands of followers online. Another may have social status that allows rumors to spread instantly while the victim has little ability to defend themselves.

Power can be physical.

It can also be social, psychological, informational, reputational, or digital.

And there is another important distinction: scientific definitions of bullying and the exact statutory language of Philippine law should not simply be treated as interchangeable. RA 10627 does not literally present “power imbalance” as one of four separately enumerated mandatory statutory elements in the way the quoted argument suggests. Anyone presenting a supposedly precise legal checklist should therefore be equally precise about what comes directly from the statute, what comes from implementing rules, and what comes from academic definitions.

The opinion provides an almost absurd hypothetical:

“Pag nagbugbog niya 'yung lima, hindi 'yun bullying kahit pa may nabugbog. Kasi nga, kailangan ng power imbalance.” (If one student beats up five students, that isn’t bullying even if people were beaten, because there has to be a power imbalance.)

Perhaps it would not qualify as bullying after investigation. Perhaps it would. The surrounding facts would matter.

But something important disappears when adults become obsessed with winning the vocabulary debate.

A student just beat five people.

Even if investigators ultimately determine that the incident does not satisfy the technical definition of bullying, that does not magically make the conduct acceptable.

It may constitute serious peer aggression. It may violate school regulations. Depending on the facts and ages involved, it may raise child-protection or criminal-law issues.

“Not technically bullying” does not mean “not serious.”

Research on peer aggression reinforces precisely this point. International research examining bullying criteria has warned that harmful peer aggression falling outside a strict bullying definition can still produce serious consequences. The label helps us classify behavior. It should never become an excuse to ignore behavior.

Then there is the issue of punishment.

“Bullying is a very technical and legal word. Do not be very quick to conclude this. Why? Because there is an ocean of difference. If you say bullying right away, napakabigat ng penalty nun. Pero kung sinabi mong committed aggression, but not necessarily bullying, baka mababa ang penalty.” (Bullying is a very technical and legal word. Do not be quick to conclude this because there is an ocean of difference. If you immediately call it bullying, the penalty is very heavy. But if you say the student committed aggression, but not necessarily bullying, the penalty may be lighter.)

The first sentence contains a legitimate principle. Schools should not rush to judgment. Accused students are children too, and they are entitled to fair procedures. Discipline should be proportionate to the conduct established by evidence.

But the objective of an investigation should never become finding the classification that produces the lighter penalty.

The questions should instead be: What happened? Who was harmed? What does the evidence establish? How do we protect the affected students? What intervention is necessary? What sanction is appropriate under the rules?

The answer should follow the evidence.

The evidence should not be manipulated to reach the preferred punishment.

This brings us back to the original accusation against principals.

“Kaya sabi ko, kasalanan ng principal eh.” (That’s why I said the principal is at fault.)

There is a much greater danger than principals reporting suspected bullying too quickly: creating a school culture in which administrators become frightened of reporting bullying at all.

Imagine the message this sends to teachers and principals.

Don’t report it yet.

Maybe the child isn’t hurt enough.

Maybe it only happened once.

The victim still attends school.

The aggressor isn’t bigger.

Maybe technically it isn’t bullying.

That is how underreporting begins.

The solution is not to choose between reckless accusation and institutional silence. Schools can do both things required by fairness: take allegations seriously and protect due process.

Report promptly.

Describe allegations accurately.

Protect the complainant.

Do not publicly presume the respondent guilty.

Investigate objectively.

Document evidence.

Interview witnesses.

Examine context.

Provide appropriate psychological and educational interventions.

Then make a finding based on evidence.

There is one point in the original opinion that deserves to survive all this criticism: not every act of student aggression is bullying.

That is true.

Two students having a spontaneous fight are not automatically engaged in bullying. A single rude comment is not automatically bullying. A disagreement between classmates is not automatically bullying. Schools need proper classification because different behavior may require different interventions.

But that principle works both ways.

Not every injury has to bleed.

Not every victim stops attending school.

Not every bully is physically bigger.

Not every serious incident must happen repeatedly.

And not every harmful act that falls outside the technical definition of bullying becomes harmless merely because adults found another name for it.

Perhaps the most important lesson is therefore not, “Huwag muna ninyong i-conclude na bullying.” (Do not conclude too quickly that it is bullying.)

A better lesson would be:

Do not rush to judgment, but do not rush to dismissal either.

When a child says, “I am being bullied,” the school’s first instinct should not be to search for a technicality that makes the complaint disappear. Nor should it immediately declare another student guilty.

Its responsibility is harder than either extreme.

Listen.

Protect.

Investigate.

Establish the facts.

Then act.

Because definitions matter for due process. Evidence matters for justice. But behind every legal definition is a child who may be asking adults for help.

We should not require that child to lose an ear, abandon school, or completely break down before deciding that the pain deserves our attention.