These past years, our lives were festered by bullies. By a country just across our shores. By a leader whose speeches were laced by expletives. By a new army called trolls whose armaments are lies upon lies.
Our lives will not be without these ogres.
I was a frail-looking child in primary school but I probably walked with a certain swagger. I might have had that certain quality that stirred the sadistic nature of bullies.
Bullying, psychologists reason out, is normal part of growing up. But it leaves long-lasting scars on the victims. We have read about children who were driven to suicide because they could not stand the fear, pain, and humiliation of being bullied.
Like most of us, I had to contend with these while growing up. It is not to say they had gone from my life as soon as I left school. Bullies abound not only in school but in workplaces, in the neighborhood, and in society in general. Bullying is a social malady. It is not only confined to physical contact, it manifest as emotional, mental, sexual, and even cyber coercion.
When I was in pre-school at St. Anthony's Parochial School in Singalong I was always absent because I often got sick. One time, an older schoolmate came to me and warned me that the teacher-priests were looking for me because "ibabagsak nila" ako he said with a sneer.
Now, that school was beside a huge church with a tall belfry. In my panic, I conjured an image of these bearded, mompo-smelling Spanish priests dropping ("bagsak") a sickly child from the tower. Well, I didn't want them to have the pleasure. I just stopped going to school. Hahaha!
I went to the PNC elementary lab school on Taft Avenue and, again, to the playgrounds bullies came. This time, I had a savior. His name was Greg Datuin, a sunburnt tough kid. I do not know for what reason he declared "Ako bahala sa yo." I didn’t have extra lunch money nor did I have homework for him to copy. But every time the bullies would lay claim to a swing or a ball that I was using, he brawled with them. He always came out on top, after which he would quietly slip away.
Then I went to another school, the Toro Hills Elementary School near our neighborhood in Project 8 where, among the bullies, was a guy who wasn't even a student of that school (and who, in later years, became a mayor of a town in Bicol). Every afternoon he would be there just at the edge of the school grounds and menace me. I would just ignore him.
Another tough kid came to the rescue. His name was Tony Rodriguez who was also not even a student there! It became a daily spectacle, the two would engage in bare-knuckle boxing and wrestle down the hill through the makahiya bushes. And I would just watch them. Sometimes, they would really be bloodied.
What the hell were those?! Up to this day, I still have to comprehend how the heads of bullies and heroes work. I probably know the psychological issues of bullies, but the protectors? They are probably two sides of the same coin.
When I transferred to JASMS, still as an elementary student, I easily made friends. But there were one or two who wanted to assert their toughness. I dealt with one in a funny way. He was obsessed with German soldiers or what we derogatorily refer to as kraut that he drew them as heroes on his pad paper everyday. Every time he tried to annoy me, I would find a blank bond paper and drew the kraut being wiped out by American soldiers. “Huwag! Huwag!” he would plead and he would behave. I discovered that drawing could be power pala.
I would still encounter bullies along the way. I got slapped in a church by the same bully from Bicol. I have been mauled near our house by a carful of noisy punks. In my high school, we had our Mariposa garden. The teachers were not aware of this. But this was the place where scores were settled between bullies and victims. Man-to-man. Mano-mano. Those who were brave and strong and cunning enough to throw the challenge to bullies survived the whole term.
I never had to use the Mariposa garden. To me, bullies have become like barking dogs. Stand your ground, don’t emanate any odor of fear, and their tails would fold between their ass.
I posted this blog in Multiply, now closing it social media features, in the hope that the protectors stumble upon it, I would like to say salamat mga pare. Buhay pa ba kayo? May problema ba kayo? Ako naman ang bahala sa inyo. Thanks for the breather. You gave me buffer to carry my own battles. And carry them I do. Well, not with my bare hands anyway. Kanya-kanya lang diskarte yan.