Secrets Never Told - A True Story

As Head Prefect, I had access to certain things in school. Disciplinary cases are accessible if I request and ask for permission, with a validable reason. Case files may or may not be a problem to access, but that's not the real problem.

Here's one of the 2 toughest cases that I handled before when I was in office.

In the second half of 2005 3 months before the AGM, I heard that 2 notorious students were sent from Sam Tet to my school. This was outrageous as our school had turned out to be a junkyard. The next morning I went to meet my HM and he just blew his top. "I couldn't believe that my good friend over there (referring to the HM in Sam Tet, his friend literally) would be so nice to send his rascals over here."

"Sir, I say we send them back."

"How to send them back? They were expelled from that school and were sent here by PPD. I called Sam Tet and they said that he had no hand in this issue. Nothing much we can do here, but if they don't toe the line I assure you they're going to get out."

Well, that's fine with me. As a friend to the HM and as a servant to the school, I knew what I had to do. But what made me curious was that almost right after I walked out of his office the prefect disciplinary teacher, DP called me and some other officers in. She wanted to brief us about the new boys in school.

"They were notorious in Sam Tet and had their gangs there, so do be on guard." DP said.

"Ma'am, their cases were..?" I asked.

"Classified."

Surprised, I asked again, "What were the cases?"

"I told you, it's classified. You don't have to know."

Why not? I had every right to know what their cases were so that necessary pre-emptive measures could be taken to prevent similar mishapes from happening. If they were expelled for whacking up their prefects in Sam Tet, then it would be all about beefing up orefect 'defense'. But it's fine, I could always pick up the phone and call Sam Tet - which I did later the evening. The HP of Sam Tet briefed me of their cases and he was surprised that my teacher did not do that instead. After thanking him, I put down the phone and thought, there sure must be a reason why my teachers didn't want to tell me those cases.

It was just a gang fight case involving prefects. Nothing much about that, was considered a relatively small case as to the heavy ones I've seen before - like possesion of weapons. So what was so secretive about that?

Few days along, the second case came along. One of my juniors - who's now out of school - was sexually harrassed. She went for counseling therapies in school but to little avail. As the counsellor was my trusted and loyal prefect too, he told me that something had to be done. I was responsible, she was my junior and I had to protect her for everything that she was involved in.

The next day I brought this matter to the HM to seek advice in actions. He, for the second time, was furious. In both rage and yet concern, he called in the discipinary teachers and demanded them to take actions. That's when another disciplinary teacher, B started to meddle things up. He broke this news to the lady officers in my prefect board - although he was given strict and stern orders from the HM himself not to do so - and that was when things became really messy. The lady officers, thanks to the gift of their gap, spilled the whole thing out to the whole prefectorial board. In no time to come, even people from ACS asked me what on earth was going on.

If you thought that was bad, the worse was yet to come.

The ladies thought they got the person who was mollested. They called her in, she was made famous in little time. She was legend for being the lady prefect who got mollested.

That wasn't the worse.

The worst was: they got the wrong prefect.

*Sweat*

I nearly banged my head when I was called back into HM's office. I had to cover up for both the real junior and for my counselor friend. I never expected this to become so bad, and already they nailed the wrong fellow, if I were to release the real identity of those two people, I'd be fried (fried, not fired) and the both of them would be quietly transferred to other schools - a common strategy used by schools to cover up major cases like teen pregnancy or rape.

She was allowed to be relinquished off her duties from prefectorial - as requested - and thanks to God, the whole thing went cold. People saw her on corridors and would spend a couple of seconds sympathising her of her poor fate and move on with their life in school. But the sight of her in my eyes was a reminder of how nasty the system and how inefficient the investigatory board in the disciplinary unit can be. That was one of it's greatest failures then.

And one fine day during the holidays I was alone in the staff room when I saw a stack of disciplinary case files on DP's table. Inside it was classified documents of the counselling sessions of the 2 boys sent from Sam Tet. Expecting a long case file, I opened it shocked to see 2 liners from the counsellor.

"Attitude problem"

"Gave advice. Will follow up"

That was all and about it. What kind of counselling was that? I checked to see who the counsellor was, it was DP's good friend in charge of the counselling unit.

What was going on?

A collaboration.

What happened was that before a student could be expelled, the disciplinary unit had to fulfill a certain quota of actions before their expelling application could be submitted. To expel a student the teachers had to send him for 3 counselling sessions.

That 3 counselling sessions took place in a matter of 2 weeks.

Conspiracy?

It was all fraud and fake. Nothing about the counselling was real. It was just there for showcause purposes. I couldn't believe that such was happening.

And I assure you, I delivered a hard nail in my final address as Head Prefect during the AGM. I slammed the teachers and the prefects for their inefficiency, but sure enough it fell on deaf - perhaps death - ears. I left the prefectorial board disillusioned and deceived. Serving the school faithfully for 5 good old years only to see that happening. I couldn't have asked for more.

B became history when he was removed from the disciplinary board and was replaced by better teachers, but DP remained as a disciplinary teacher. In that year where all these things happened, a secretariat department was established for non-active prefects only in charge of administration duties. I transferred my victim-junior - who's case still remained unknown - to that unit in hope that she will be less haunted and tormented. Eventually the 2 new boys were expelled after a long fight, but at the last day of their school they shook hands with me.

"Sir," one of them said. "You're the best prefect I've ever met in both Sam Tet and Poi Lam."

I asked them why.

"Because no one has ever treated us like humans ever since we came here." the other replied.

Watching both of them speeding off on their bikes, I accidentally saw my junior standing alone outside the gate, waiting for her parents to come. I approached her and apologised.

"I'm sorry for not being able to protect you."

"Sir, I don't know what you're talking about." she covered up. Deep in her heart, she knew that the admittance of the case would mean more publisity and more coverage, that the best defense was denial.

Perhaps the only thing left now is just memories. Such secrets are no longer secrets because people will only talk about it over tea and coffee, and no actions will be taken against the perpetuators. No one will remember who the people were, or how they were involved. It's not even in history.

Now, I know why I'm the Keeper of Secrets. Because I kept the secrets that could have changed the cause of both my prefectorial and the disciplinary.

Disclaimer: No names were mentioned in this whole article, yet it remains a true story. The only identity known here is mine, and I am no longer accountable to any questioning from any party, especially from my school's disciplinary board as I am no longer related nor responsible to them.