The recent suspicions surrounding the New Reform Party's former Busan mayoral candidate Jeong Yi-han have clearly exposed 'a league of their own', a chronic evil in Korean society. In the past, when he was a high school student, he was recorded as not only attending school but also completing reading activities at the school affiliated with the foundation where his father was the chairman of the board, despite not attending school for a single day, leading to suspicions that he had laundered his school records. Even though the homeroom teacher who manipulated this at the time was found guilty, he was later promoted to vice principal of a school under the same foundation, a strange appointment. This clearly proves how lenient even politicians who call for fairness are when it comes to their own records, and how a closed space called a private school foundation can be privatized for personal reasons.

These suspicions of preferential treatment are not just a matter of the past, but are extending their dark hand to the current political nomination process. As an employee of the hospital run by former candidate Jeong's father was nominated as a proportional representative candidate, it was revealed how powerless the political party's verification system operates due to specific personal connections and interests. Representative Lee Jun-seok complained about the limitations of verification due to the candidate's name change and the opacity of his past history, but it is difficult to avoid criticism that this is ultimately an evasion of responsibility. From suspicions of a terrorist attack to the authenticity of medical records, the series of noise surrounding former candidate Jeong is a painful example of how dangerous people are dragged into the public sphere when our political circles put 'relationships' ahead of 'systems'.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in the Philippines, a tragedy occurred that left a school drenched in blood. At a high school in Tacloban, Leyte province, 14- and 15-year-old students opened fire indiscriminately at their classmates, killing three and wounding seven. The students who committed the crime claimed that they had been bullied at school, and it was even more shocking that one of the tools of the crime was found to belong to a current police officer. This tragedy that occurred at school was not simply the deviation of two students, but the tragic result of a social environment where illegal gun distribution was rampant and a school system that neglected the suffering of children.

The shooting incident in the Philippines and the mass assault of high school students in Cheonan warn of how 'bullying' in schools can evolve into destructive violence. In the case of the Cheonan incident, six assailants brutally assaulted their classmates, resulting in the victim needing emergency surgery. The perpetrators persistently committed violence, moving from karaoke rooms to parking lots, and this is no different from the real-life version of 'The Glory' style school violence, which has recently emerged as a social problem. Bullying and violence that occur within schools are no longer trivial disputes between children; they must be treated as serious crimes and social disasters that completely ruin the lives of victims.