The Department of Education (DepEd) reported that bullying cases have increased in the last seven years, except during the pandemic.
DepEd Asst. Sec. Dexter Galban, during a to Senate hearing on anti-bullying, said 1,309 bullying cases were reported since RA 10627 or Anti-Bullying Act of 2013 was passed into law,
Galban also told the Senate Committee on Basic Education chaired by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian that the number of cases has been rising until it reached 15,866 during the school year 2017 to 2018. The number of cases rose to 21,521 during the school year 2018 to 2019 which was the highest.
However, this went down to 11,637 during the school year 2019 to 2020.
Galban said it is likely that the reported cases of bullying increased since there was a reporting system following the passage of a law to address this crime.
There was also a decline in the number of bullying cases due to the pandemic as classes were held online. Based on the reported bullying cases the past seven years, he said 56.79% were physical, 25.43% were social, 5.92% were gender-based,6.03% were cyber bullying and 5.83% was retaliation or revenge.
Galban said the number of cyberbullying and gender-based bullying increased. He also said there were several cases of unreported bullying incidents due to the lack of guidance counselors.
Gatchalian earlier express alarm over the supposed unreported bullying cases in schools. He also noted the discrepancies between data from the DepEd and several studies and reports.
He also has misgivings on the education department’s figures as he pointed out by study from the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) showed that 63% of Grade 5 students experienced bullying, the highest in the region.
He also mentioned the study of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which reported that 40% of Filipino students are frequently bullied.
He emphasized these figures are consistent with the World Health Organization (WHO) report, which showed that 40.6% of children aged 13 to 17 experience some form of bullying.
“This is quite worrisome and concerning because the percentage showed that six out of ten students have experienced some form of bullying,” Gatchalian said.
Gatchalian said this means that there are a lot of unreported bullying cases.
In large-scale examinations, he said students “tell the truth” because they know that the evaluation will be processed by people who are not connected to their schools.
“So my analysis is there is a huge issue of cases being unreported, and that is a problem because if it is unreported, then how do we solve the problem? How do we help them?” asked Gatchalian.
Galban said they will confer with their research team as well as the planning services of DepEd to reconcile the data.