When kids — and adults — bully

The boy, slim and slight, casually paces the space behind another boy, his chosen target. Before this, he has already taunted and threatened his prey, and now he is waiting for him to move so he has the pretext to strike.

The other boy, quivering before the urinal, turns around and tries to defend himself.

The blows come — strong kicks, obviously well-practiced, a sharp jab that sends the target reeling and bloodies his nose.

The bully isn’t done. He finishes the job with a final flurry of kicks.

The other boy’s friends, stupefied with fear, shush their now-crying, staggering classmate and direct him to wash up.

The bully saunters off.

The video of this bullying incident, captured in a rest room of what would eventually be confirmed as the Ateneo De Manila Junior High School, went viral on Thursday and transfixed the nation.

It wasn’t the only video of the bully in action; two other clips would surface showing him harassing and inflicting violence on other boys.

In one, a fellow high-schooler was forced to call himself “bobo” (dumb) and kiss his tormentor’s feet.

A horrified public immediately exacted vengeance by unleashing a torrent of threats and vile language on the boy. His name was soon smoked out, along with a number of alleged details about him — taekwondo blackbelter, supposedly a serial bully like his older brother and already the subject of two or three complaints for bullying, but has been spared any school action because of the family’s alleged powerful connections.

Ateneo’s initial response, unfortunately, was a clumsily written statement: It took note of “a video that appears to feature Ateneo de Manila Junior High School students in a fight in the campus…”

There was no fight; one boy was clearly shown to have deliberately attacked another.

“Taken at face value,” the statement added, “[the video] depicts an evident act of violence that constitutes a serious violation of disciplinary misconduct” — a muddled, mixed-up description of the incident and its implications.

While it said it was “dealing with this matter seriously” and promised an immediate investigation, the statement was striking for its lack of words of commiseration for the bully’s victims and their presumably incensed families, only remembering to thank “the concerned individuals who have brought this matter directly to our attention.”

It also asked the public to stop sharing the videos, on grounds of the “privacy rights” of the minors involved, but which rather smacked of the school trying to keep the case under wraps.

The videos are a documentation of a pattern of incidents that carries disturbing implications: Inside the supposed safe space of this school, a student was able to tyrannize his peers a number of times and seemingly get away with it.

Would Ateneo have been jolted to action the way it was had these videos not surfaced?

Ateneo president Fr. Jett Villarin’s subsequent statement, in any case, was firmer and more direct: “Let me be very clear: the school does not condone such behavior,” he said; it will “not hesitate to impose the penalty of dismissal or even expulsion in cases of grave misconduct.”

The online vitriol generated by this incident, on the other hand, has raised an ironic counterpoint — that those raising a hue and cry against bullying are themselves engaging pretty much in it with their unrestrained attacks on the young offender.

(How many of them, one wonders, are as quickly bothered when it’s, say, the President doing the bullying?)

As writer and grief coach Cathy Sanchez Babao warned, “Do we willingly join the mob, and bully them as well by name-calling, dragging the bully and his family through the muck, and threatening with words and bodily harm? …When we bully the bully, we are no better than him. And if you’re an adult, you’re much worse than him.”

Indeed, in real life, outside of social media, the scenario would be a no-brainer: When an adult sees a kid bullying another on the street, the adult is expected to intervene, protect the victim and chastise the bully.

But if the adult then proceeds to maul the kid offender himself, he will be called out for abusing and assaulting a minor — a bigger transgression, as the adult should know better.

Proportionality is an essential component of justice — the idea that the degree of punishment should fit the crime. The offender, in this case, is also a kid.

No question that he must be made accountable for his deed — but the adults in the room need to be the grownups with the fair, calm, sober minds to arrive at that just point.