Bully in the play yard

I was barely nine growing up in the river sandbar town of Aparri at the mouth of the Cagayan River in the northern part of the Philippines when a buddy suddenly turned into a bully. George was the son of a Filipina and a GI’s romantic fling on the tail end of World War II, and his Caucasian genes gave him a larger than the norm appearance in our play yard. He did not take advantage of his imposing stature but he got the brunt of our sniggering by pointing out that he never knew his father each time he earned our displeasure. Lose face is not a desired state anywhere in Asia.

On this particular afternoon in our hide-the-twirled-rubber-bands-on-the end-a-bamboo-stick under the sand game, he started to pick on me, needling the short runt of the litter. A mental trigger got pulled and I sprung up grabbing one of George’s arms, turned my body so I was hauling him up my back like a bundle of unthreshed palay (rice), and flung him down to the ground in a way that would have amazed a judo-er. I did not think the body throw would cause any damage, the ground being sandy and soft. For a month, however, George wore a sling on shattered bones and dislocated joints, and I skipped the playground the rest of the year.

Bullying, the inflicting of fear and pain through imposing physical threat, is one CNMI-PSS has been adumbrating against as a looming presence in the schoolyard. At SVES, one of my “mongrel” students who was bigger than the local genetic strain but was more gently predisposed, went home on many occasions in tears for being bullied by shorter but menacing local boys. Not the Korean girls who quickly bonded together in common defense from the taunting of their local counterparts. Koreans were perceived as carpetbaggers because most village Mom and Pop stores were Hanggok-run but it dawned on the Hanggul saram children early on that there was strength in unified defense.

One of the local teachers, out of seeming deep defensiveness, not only made it her business to immediately go to the principal’s office to “tell” on other teachers each time she perceived an infraction of rules, until the office told her to stop, but in her class, one can slice fear in the air. She called it “discipline,” a carrot-and-stick variety that an psychologist called “coercive bullying.”

Shortly after joining PSS, I was party to parents of autistic children at STaRPO and SpEd PSS to jointly develop SpEd curriculum and training, particularly those diagnosed with ASD, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome. The former CK Headstart facility was no longer in use, was in disrepair, and a joint effort went into refurbishing the facility. The SpEd head who was an MOU principal, however, discovered a debilitating disease that caused her to seek immediate medical assistance in the mainland.

My spouse and I, both considered “aliens” on island (though I carried a blue passport), decided that for three months, instead of paying rent, we would use the money to buy needed materials and equipment for the center, and stay in the facility that had a history of being vandalized by community hoodlums, twice while undergoing repairs. We upgraded the kitchen, bathrooms, and water tank.

STaRPO center quickly became a community node. Events of PACA/STaRPO-UCCDD/NMC and the disability community lost no time in holding activities at the location; so did SpEd and PSS-related events. An NMPASI-assisted mother came in regularly to clean up the place, and Saturday voluntary workdays and landscaping on the premises were held.

A ranking PSS Central Office personnel attended one of the events. We explained our residency and how we intended to continue the repairs through continuing occupancy. By then, PSS’ material support understandably dried up after the SpEd officer who proposed the original PSS-STaRPO MOA went on medical leave. The smiley image of “keep up the good work” we thought we were getting was shattered the following early Sunday morning when a police officer came knocking at the door.

“Something wrong, officer?”

“We got a phone call reporting unauthorized residency on the public facility.”

One of our neighbors recently expressed delight in our presence as it mitigated further vandalism, but her aunt was our former landlord elsewhere, and she was not pleased. So we understood, and immediately explained our residency and that PSS Central posed no objections, name-dropping our ranking PSS contact.

“E-hem,” the officer continued, “that’s who called to make the report.”

Needless to say, my fear-stricken spouse took us out of the facility in a jiffy. We continued to be steward to the facility but evening break-ins and vandalism commenced, some making the local paper. After the ninth time when books and files were scattered, computers were carted away, and walls defaced, we decided to call it ‘quits’.

Bullying? We commonly reserve that term for the physical variety, but the behavior ensues from the same dynamic attendant to domestic violence, abuse of authority, sexual intimidations, vandalism-the foisting and imposition of fear on others, and the coercive defensiveness of both the perpetrators, and ironically, the bullied themselves.

The “bully pulpit” has become a term for “coercive persuasion.” As a former man-of-the-cloth, we may reconsider making the term acceptable. I should know. There is nothing persuasive about bullies!

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Vergara is a regular contributor to the Saipan Tribune’s Opinion Section