Sex abuse runs deep in our schools. Cases spanning years, with multiple predators across many institutions, were left unresolved, collecting dust while schools did little to nothing for the victims. Worse, the abusers continue to hold power as standing, protected members of the schools' storied faculty.
In 2019, students from Ateneo de Manila University protested on campus, calling out the administration's inaction on sexual harassment cases against faculty. Time's Up Ateneo was born, a community of survivors and advocates committed to ending sexual violence and impunity in the university. Months after, several colleges and high schools followed suit with a barrage of testimonies on social media using the hashtag #DoBetter. The exposition was particularly pronounced in Catholic schools, including Miriam College, whose hashtag amassed over 30,000 posts. And yet, six years later, victims are still denied justice, and schools have yet to make meaningful, effective changes to end sexual abuse.
Despite hundreds of victims, this systemic problem has remained unresolved for decades because schools continue to deny that their processes, structures, and cultures enable abusers to run rampant. Beyond bringing bad actors to court, it is time to hold these schools accountable.
That's because this issue stayed hidden due to school officials themselves, who exerted administrative power to silence victims and protect predators. When victims came forward on social media, many were quick to denounce the public exposition. While calling for due process is warranted, they missed the fact that some victims indeed sought due process first, only for universities to treat them poorly. In Ateneo, survivors had to submit written testimonies. They also had to undergo an interview where administrators asked them to elaborate on their traumatic experience in what a survivor described as an 'almost inhumane' manner. In yet another complaint on Ateneo, the university admitted to making a mistake in classifying the case, prompting the student to file the complaint anew — a process they described as 'going through another injustice' in itself.
When survivors are not given the courtesy of an effective, trauma-informed process, universities cannot fault them for turning to social media, however painful, as a last resort to make their cases heard. While Ateneo did revise its reporting processes following the outcry, victims argue that the change felt like lip service, as the university still failed to provide reparations to victims who endured the defunct process.
In high schools, students who came forward felt that school administrators often sided with their abusers, hiding behind legal processes and private investigations. Beyond treating victims like offenders, schools perpetuate an entire system designed to facilitate predatory behaviors. They fall short in providing faculty and students regular anti-sexual harassment and bystander trainings, which would have curbed predators. Schools preserve silence and secrecy when they fail to respond to and report wrongdoings. While not unique to any school, the overblown organizational hierarchy and entrenched tenure benefits also grant unchecked power to bad actors. When structures and procedures are combined with power systems that bring undue protections, schools create an environment that is especially attractive to abusive faculty.
But the problem does not end there. What is particularly sinister in Philippine education institutions is their ingrained culture of impunity. In Ateneo, for instance, there is an enduring culture of putting professors on pedestals. Certain faculty are regarded highly due to their long tenure, 'legendary' teaching styles, or especially grueling examinations. Endowed with cultural fame, so-called 'terror profs' gain formal and informal power, feeding egos and perpetuating a patriarchal culture where power imbalances lead to terrible actions.
While being a lauded professor is not inherently bad, this culture turns the teaching role on its head: Instead of being a form of service, the faculty — good and bad — are given undue power and control over students. When predators feel powerful, and their transgressions go unchecked, it is significantly more difficult for victims to come forward for fear of retribution and stigma. It is also harder for well-meaning faculty and students to call out abusive behaviors, making it almost impossible for bystander action to occur.
At its core, schools are organizations with policies, structures, and cultures, all of which can and will go south when left unimproved over decades. Schools are complicit in sexual harassment because they enable an environment where abusers can wield power with little consequences. Instead of just charging the cases to bad actors, schools must own up to their culpability.
There is no lack of solutions available to make things right. Survivors in collective movements like Time's Up Ateneo had already outlined what victim-centered, trauma-informed responses look like. Schools can look to their peers for policies and structures that protect students from abuse. While it is especially difficult to change entrenched cultures, doing so is necessary and not impossible. Schools need to treat the issue as pervasive and systemic — one that calls for overall organizational change instead of one-off solutions.
The primary responsibility of schools is to protect and safeguard students' rights. There is simply no learning without basic protections. Schools need to uphold the trust given to them by parents and students, and to do that, they must own up now.