Behind the Screen

Tatler delves deeper into cyberbullying to shed light on the threats that this issue poses in the modern, digital world

- Jove Moya

“I was a girl full of dreams.” This was how Paula Salvosa described herself when Tatler asked how she was before being a victim of cyberbullying. On November 13, 2012, she was caught on video yelling at a security guard at the LRT 2 Santolan Station. Uploaded on YouTube, the video captured Salvosa repeatedly uttering, “So you’re saying I’m a liar?”, which gave birth to the buzzword “Amalayer”.

Salvosa’s momentary outburst became a national scandal. Different news agencies—from tabloids, broadsheets and late-night programmes— picked up her story and broadcasted it to millions of Filipinos.

Even when she managed to share her side of the story (that the guard allegedly grabbed her when she failed to put her bag on the conveyor of an X-ray machine), Salvosa failed to earn sympathy. Behind the cameras, and away from social media, she became fearful of what will be thrown at her next. “I began failing some of my classes, I was not able to function properly,” she says. In fact, even several years later, she still suffers from the scar the cyberbullying left. A series of clinical visits diagnosed her as suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Bipolar 1 disorder.