The Child Protection Committee, or Anti-Bullying committee, is tasked to prevent, detect, and address bullying in schools. — INQUIRER.NET/ANN Photo

MANILA — Only 966 out of more than 45,000 schools in the Philippines have a functioning Anti-Bullying Committee.

The Department of Education (DepEd) disclosed this data at a public hearing on the rising cases of bullying in the country on Tuesday.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, chairperson of the Senate panel on basic education, was alarmed upon looking at the data and wondered why the number appeared to be so low.

“In other words, this committee is tasked to prevent, detect, and address bullying in schools. But what you’re saying now is only 966 schools out of 45,000 plus schools have a functioning Child Protection Committee (CPC) [or] Anti-Bullying committee?” Gatchalian asked.

DepEd Assistant Secretary Dexter Galban said this was only based on the 3,210 schools in the country, adding that another 48,000 schools have yet to be evaluated.

“That’s such a huge gap — 966 out of 45,000? No wonder bullying still happens. Isn’t it the responsibility of our principals to ensure they have a functioning CPC/Anti-Bullying Committee?” Gatchalian asked.

Galban said it was the primary purpose of actually implementing the CPC Functioning Personality Test because, by policy, all schools should have a CPC.

“This is why we created a mechanism to actually check whether or not there is an actual presence of a working CPC and if not, what aspects they are lacking,” he explained in Filipino.

Gatchalian pointed out that the absence of a CPC in schools clearly violates the Anti-Bullying Law.

“That’s a violation of the law because the law calls for the creation of the CPC in all public elementary and secondary schools. That is under the Anti-Bullying Law. What is the liability of the principals if they do not implement this? It’s shocking that only 966 out of 45,000 — that’s only 2 percent of our total schools,” he said in Filipino.

Responding to the senator’s queries, Galban said the DepEd would look into what administrative sanctions can be imposed on schools that are unable to operationalize their CPCs.

Data from DepEd showed that 79,819 cases of bullying — both physical and digital — were recorded from 2019 to 2022. INQUIRER.NET/ANN