Silence is never neutral: Communication and crisis management lessons from the Ateneo team-building tragedy

The timing of statements

Communications executive Ron Jabal told PhilSTAR L!fe that in tragedies involving the loss of lives, "communication is not merely a public relations function—it is an act of care, accountability, and leadership."

"The first audience should never be the public. It should be the families. But once the matter becomes public, the institution also has a responsibility to communicate with clarity, compassion, and a visible commitment to the truth," he said.

When a crisis like this happens, there can be a slowdown in communication due to several factors.

"First, there's the need for verification," communications strategist Lilet Camara said in an interview with L!fe. "Before a university puts anything official on record, it needs to confirm that the people named are actually deceased, that the families have been notified, and that the basic facts (who, what, where, when, why) are accurate."

Releasing a premature statement with wrong details would only lead to more trouble.

Institutions as prominent as Ateneo first consult their legal counsel, who usually advise to "say as little as possible, as careful as possible, until they have reviewed and vetted all facts to be released," said Camara.

Crisis management and crisis communications expert Gina dela Vega added that institutions typically agree first on exactly what can and cannot be said to the public. She pointed out that before internal alignment was achieved, Baterbonia's grieving mother had already spoken on national television, and the narrative was "no longer Ateneo's to shape."

The public does not experience any of the said factors after all, per Camara.

Jabal stressed that in moments of tragedy, silence is never neutral. "It is interpreted. It can be read as caution, but it can also be read as indifference."

Dangers of speculations

While the lack of immediate clarity often fuels public concern, experts cautioned that limited communication can easily be filled with speculation—some of which may be inaccurate or harmful.

According to communications professor Nathan (not his real name), the moment an accident happens, the story already starts moving forward.

"There will be protagonists, there will be antagonists. People will be sympathizing with the victims and crucifying the perpetrators or the people who seem to be at fault," he told L!fe in a phone interview.

He explained it's because our brains are "wired towards negativity," so it's important for any organization to give information so as to set the facts and quash these speculations or rumors.

Dela Vega also warned that "when an institution goes quiet, it does not buy itself peace—it buys itself a story it cannot control."

"We saw this happen within hours of June 8. Before Ateneo had said very much at all, a competing narrative was already circulating about ankle weights, hazing, deliberate negligence. It did not matter that police eventually stated no weights were found on the bodies. By the time that correction arrived, the narrative had already metastasized," she said.

"That is how misinformation works in the smartphone era. It moves at the speed of outrage, and corrections move at the speed of bureaucracy. The gap between those two speeds is where institutions are destroyed," she added.

Because of this, she highlighted that institutions do not need the full story to communicate, but they need to speak up.

"Even a brief, honest 'We are still gathering the facts, and we will return to you by this evening' changes the dynamic entirely. It says: 'We are not hiding.' And that is precisely what the public needs to hear," dela Vega said.

Adding fuel to the fire is how interviews with former Blue Eagles have resurfaced on social media, leading others to bring up Ateneo's "grueling" training camps in the past.

For Camara, the moment that past incidents enter the public conversation, the current crisis is no longer only about what happened on June 8.

"It becomes about a pattern. And a pattern is a much harder crisis to manage than a single incident," she said. "When history is being raised in a crisis, the university should acknowledge it directly, engage with it honestly, and commit to a specific structural review."

"The tactical implication for Ateneo is this: The bootcamp accounts cannot be addressed within the same grief statement. It requires a separate, dedicated communication. One that says directly: 'We have heard what our former players described, we take those accounts seriously, and here is what we are doing about it,'" she added.

The importance of having a 'human face' in crisis

Some social media users also raised concern about Ateneo’s "cold" statements.

According to Camara, corporate lawyers partly strip human emotion out of crisis statements "to minimize exposure for the institution."

But not having a human face amid all of this can get problematic.

"Everything they have released so far is attributed to Ateneo as the university, the institution. There is no name, no face to humanize the expression of grief, of commitment to the families, of accountability," she said.

Nathan echoed similar sentiments. "At the very least, in this kind of situation, the leader of the organization or the president should have given a statement to express sympathy, share what actions are being taken by the university," he said. "It's not just because of the statement, but it's the absence of any person from Ateneo speaking."

What some institutions fail to understand, according to dela Vega, is that initial statements in a crisis don't need to provide all the answers. "What they need is a human voice that says: 'We know, we are shattered by this, and we are here.' Those three things, said early and said honestly, create the space to manage everything else with far more credibility."

On what specific words or tones make a statement sound "too corporate," dela Vega believes that it's when the institution "speaks about itself," such as using the terms "The University extends," "The University is providing," "We respectfully ask," and the like.

"Where in this statement is Rene? Where is Divine? Two young men died, one barely a week after arriving on campus for the very first time, one far from Nigeria with his whole season ahead of him, and the statement meant to speak to their passing is largely about the university's posture and preferences," she said.

She explained how corporate language uses passive constructions to avoid naming responsibility and uses formal nouns to "create distance from raw human tragedy."

"When you write a statement in a crisis of this magnitude, you begin with the names of the dead, not as subjects of the institution's condolences, but as people with full lives and families and futures that were cut short. And you say sorry," she highlighted.

Rebuilding trust

Beyond responding to criticism, the bigger challenge for Ateneo now is rebuilding trust among grieving families, students, alumni, and the wider public.

Camara emphasized that the university should have "complete and unedited accountability for the findings," wherein they must publish the findings of authorities, internal reviews, and more in full and without spin.

Structural changes that are specific and named are also a must, as well as honoring Baterbonia and Adili in a way that is "permanent and meaningful."

Dela Vega added that if they genuinely accept moral responsibility, then they should "not make two grieving families endure years of litigation before they see any concrete acknowledgment of what was taken from them."

"You provide for them now, not because a judge has ordered it, but because it is right. And the difference between those two motivations is exactly what the public is watching for," she said.

"An institution that clears liability and wins in the courtroom but has permanently lost the confidence of every parent who once proudly sent their child there has not won anything that truly matters. The only genuine victory is the one that restores trust," she added.