Grim turning point

In the immediate aftermath of the shocking shooting incident at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City, where two minors — age 14 and 15 — opened fire on their schoolmates and teachers, killing three and injuring 20 others, the knee-jerk reactions came fast and furious.

Barely an hour after the tragedy, with the chaos still unfolding as distressed parents were picking up traumatized children and the police were busy securing the crime scene and arresting the suspects, Sen. Robinhood Padilla already had a ready villain to blame: the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, which he said has empowered children to think they could get away with heinous crimes. His solution? Lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10 from the current 15, something he had long pushed despite the absence of empirical evidence that such a measure would deter youth crime.

He was also plainly wrong about the law, which makes disinformation from someone in his position even more dangerous. Republic Act No. 9344, or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, and its amendment, RA 10630, exempt minors in conflict with the law who are 15 years old and below from criminal liability by sending them not to prison but to state-run intervention and rehabilitation programs. Those above 15 to 18 years old, however, can face criminal responsibility if they are proven to have acted with discernment.

Reactionary stance

The Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (Pahra) was right to call out Padilla for his reactionary stance on the issue. “Have you ever asked what interventions actually prevent children from committing violence?,” said Pahra Secretary General Edgar Cabalitan. “Have you explored reforms that strengthen mental health support, anti-bullying programs, family interventions, and child rehabilitation instead of simply making children easier to imprison?”

Vice President Sara Duterte offered an even more bizarre response to the issue. “This tragedy exposes the failure of the government to recognize the importance of intelligence gathering and identifying threats before lives are lost,” she intoned. But the kids who committed the heinous school attack weren’t part of a shadowy criminal syndicate; initial police reports said they complained of being bullied at school.

Among the most sensible reactions to the tragedy is the plea of a mother of one of the shooting victims: that the gun owners be charged, “because the guns wouldn’t have ended up in the children’s hands if it weren’t for them,” she was quoted as saying.

Reality on the ground

Indeed, the most urgent aspect of the investigation is finding out how the two kids got hold of guns in the first place: a .38-caliber revolver and a Glock 17 pistol, from which most of the bullets came. The pistol has been determined to be a service firearm issued to a police officer — the aunt of the 14-year-old suspect, immediately raising questions about the liability of the adult members of the household in supervising the child’s welfare and conduct.

Bullying may yet be proven as the motive for the two suspects’ behavior, but that of course is no justification for their horrific course of action. Rather, it should jolt the country to intensify efforts to address the harm inflicted on young minds by the violence and anxiety they may face in school, in their larger communities, and on social media.

Under the Anti-Bullying Act (RA 10627), schools are mandated to implement programs that provide counseling, life skills training, and psychosocial rehabilitation to ensure a safe learning environment for both the victim and the perpetrator. That is the ideal setup. The reality on the ground, however, is that many schools, lacking in resources and support, barely make do with what they have, unable to lend assistance to every schoolkid going through a particularly rough time.

Deep systemic failures

In terms of physical security, San Jose National High School’s case is a stark example: There was only one security guard on duty for a campus that had more than 1,600 students and over 110 teachers.

The Philippine educational system, already burdened by deep systemic failures, is facing a grim turning point with the introduction of American-style gun bloodshed in schools perpetrated by alienated, disaffected minors. The government cannot be cavalier in its investigation into this incident, and neither can the public in its response, because the implications to the country’s future would be catastrophic.

Pahra’s enumeration of critical child-support issues needing attention is a useful starting point for examining the conditions that leave many Filipino children isolated and distressed, with increasingly tragic consequences. And for the young lives lost in Tacloban City to not die in vain, this incident should compel the government to do all it can to shine a light on the roots of the violence, and for the country itself to commit more resources to the existential cause of ensuring greater support and safeguards for its vulnerable children.