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The family of Liam Madamba, a scholar of British School Manila who committed suicide after being bullied by a teacher, is demanding two top BSM officials to resign after Liam’s death.
Trixie Madamba, mother of Liam and a teacher at Beacon Academy, said Simon Mann, head of school of BSM, and Simon Bewlay, board of governors chair, must resign over its handling of Liam’s case.
“I demand for the resignation of the board chairman Simon Bewlay and the head of school Simon Mann because as administrators, they completely lack any sense of compassion or empathy, no openness or accountability, no sense of responsibility at all. It has been more than three months,” she told ANC’s Headstart.
ANC tried to contact BSM management for their side on the issue but was told that no representative was available.
ALLEGED FAILURE OF SCHOOL AUTHORITIES
In the interview, Mrs. Madamba criticized the two school officials for releasing an abridged and edited version of an independent review panel that was formed to investigate the Madamda suicide as well as BSM policies. She also urged the Department of Education to compel BSM to release the full report.
She also lashed out at head of school Simon Mann for allowing the bullying teacher, Natalie Mann, to leave the country after Liam’s suicide.
“That she was allowed to leave the country I hold the head of the school, Simon Mann, responsible and consequently liable for that.”
“Where is the moral sense of authority? Who are these people who are running this school? They have no right, they have no business running a school and dealing with students,” she said.
Asked if she is interested in pursuing the teacher, she said: “She’s long gone…”
“We are focusing on the board chairman Simon Bewlay and the head of school Simon Mann for mishandling this case and for a lack of compassion and for constantly deceiving and conniving to cover up their mistakes.”
Liam Madamba, 18, one of the top graduating students at the international school in Taguig, supposedly jumped from the 6th floor of the Dela Rosa carpark building in Makati on February 6. He later died at the Makati Medical Center.
Madamba’s parents believe the suicide was triggered by Natalie Mann’s accusation that the graduating student committed plagiarism on the first draft of his school paper.
THREATENED, HUMILIATED, SHAMED
In the interview, Mrs. Madamba said her son committed a mistake by improperly citing one short paragraph in his essay, which may or may not be plagiarism.
She pointed out, however, that Mann failed to follow the school manual, which states that a first offense on a first draft should only be meted a 15-minute lunch detention.
BSM TEACHER DIDN’T READ APOLOGY LETTER
Mrs. Madamba said that instead of helping Liam, Mann threatened and humiliated the boy.
“He was threatened, he was humiliated. He was told that he was a disgrace and destroying the reputation of the school. His scholarship is threatened. And then he was taken to a separate room for a one-on-one meeting with this teacher. I don’t know what happened in that room but she made him write a letter of apology,” she said.
Mrs. Madamba said she did not see her son’s letter of apology until two months after he died.
“You can see in the turns of phrase and the words that he used, you could really see his state of mind. He was in a state of total shame. Shame is lethal and deadly. You could tell that he was in extreme suffering, extremely humiliated. He was pushed to the brink and he had snapped,” she said.
She also revealed that Mann had admitted to the panel that she never read the letter of apology that Liam wrote.
“Had she bothered to read it, she would have seen signs. What happened to Liam should never have happened,” she said.
Mrs. Madamba said she believes that her son, who is an introvert, succumbed to the psychological bullying that he suffered from his teacher.
She said another student who was also reprimanded by Mann for the same offense went hysterical after the admonition. She said Mann pacified the student by telling her that the letter would not be read by the entire school.
“Natalie Mann had clarified to her: ‘You know, not everybody is going to read this letter. It is not going to be sent out to the community, pacifying her.’ She did not do that with my son. She did not clarify that is not punitive but reflective. My son understood it to be punitive.”
In the interview, Mrs. Madamba said she will be consulting her family about the possible filing charges against the two BSM officials. She said that while she loves and admires BSM as an institution, she considers both Simon Mann and Simon Bewlay “a disgrace to the school and a disgrace to the British community in this country.”
“They need to go for the sake of the children who are in school. What happened to Liam should not happen to anybody else.”
This article has been re-published with permission from ABS-CBNnews.com.
Photo: News clip
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