A School Shooting Begins Long Before the First Shot

I once believed that school shootings happened somewhere else, in another country, another culture, or another society. Like many Filipinos, I was grateful that this was one tragedy we did not have to face. Then one day, the unthinkable happened, and tragedy unfolded in our own classrooms.

For years, we looked at school shootings as someone else’s tragedy. Today, we face the painful reality that they can happen here, too.

The recent school shooting in Tacloban City has shaken the nation. Three students lost their lives. Many others were injured. Families who entrusted their children to the safety of a classroom now face a grief that no parent should ever experience.

As expected, public reaction was swift. Calls to lower the age of criminal responsibility resurfaced almost immediately. Others pointed to violent video games, social media, bullying, poor parenting, or failures within the school system. Each of these concerns deserves careful attention, yet none of them, standing alone, fully explains what happened.

What troubles me most is not only that children died. It is also that children stand accused of taking those lives.

No parent imagines that one day their child could become either the victim of a school shooting or the one accused of carrying it out. Yet both possibilities remind us of the same truth: every child needs guidance, protection, and hope long before tragedy enters the picture.

That reality should force us to ask a more difficult question. Before we debate how to punish young offenders, should we not first ask what happened to these children long before that tragic morning?

Contrary to what many people believe, Philippine law does not simply allow minors who commit serious crimes to walk free. Under the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, children below fifteen years old are generally exempt from criminal liability but may still undergo court-ordered intervention and rehabilitation. Those aged fifteen to eighteen who are found to have acted with discernment, meaning they understood the nature and consequences of their actions, may be held criminally liable and placed in secure rehabilitation or detention facilities for years, depending on the circumstances and the court’s decision. While the law recognizes that children are still capable of reform, it also recognizes the need for accountability.

This distinction matters because much of the public debate has been driven by the mistaken belief that the law is powerless.

Personally, I do not support lowering the age of criminal responsibility to ten years old.

A ten-year-old who commits a violent crime has already experienced years of influences that no child should have to navigate alone. Somewhere along the way, warning signs were missed, cries for help went unheard, or harmful ideas found fertile ground.

This tragedy also reminded me of a very personal chapter in my own life. Months ago, I wrote about my son’s struggle with depression after experiencing bullying. Watching a child slowly withdraw, lose confidence, and battle emotional pain changes a parent’s understanding forever. His experience taught me that bullying is never something children should simply be expected to endure. The wounds are often invisible, but they can shape a child’s future.

As his mother, I carried a burden that many parents know too well, the lingering guilt of wondering whether I had done enough to protect my own child. Over time, however, I came to understand that protecting children cannot rest on parents alone. Parents have a duty to protect their children, but so do schools that must take bullying seriously, institutions entrusted with safeguarding young people, technology companies and social media platforms whose influence increasingly shapes what children see, believe, and sometimes imitate, and a society that too often dismisses emotional pain until it is too late.

The tragedy in Tacloban did not begin when the first shot was fired. By then, the damage had already been done.

No child grows up in isolation. Children first learn values at home. School helps build on those values, friends influence them, and today, so does the online world.

This does not mean that social media or violent video games alone create killers. Millions of young people use the same platforms without ever harming anyone. The issue is more complex. Many children who lose their way are already carrying heavy burdens. Some are bullied. Others struggle with problems at home, depression, loneliness, or the feeling that no one understands them. If, on top of these struggles, they spend hours watching violent content or following unhealthy influences online, those burdens become even heavier.

Technology is now part of every child’s daily life. It offers many benefits, but it can also expose children to ideas and behavior they may not yet be ready to understand. The digital world has become another classroom, except there are no teachers deciding what lessons children learn. That is why parents need to know not only where their children are, but also what they are watching, who they are talking to, and what is shaping the way they think.

Schools carry that responsibility too. Bullying should never be dismissed as something children simply have to live with. A child who suddenly becomes withdrawn, angry, fearful, or isolated needs to be noticed before the situation becomes more serious. Children should know that there is always a trusted adult in school who will listen and help.

The responsibility does not end there. Adults who own firearms must keep them secure and out of children’s reach. Governments must continue improving child protection and mental health services. Technology companies cannot leave everything to parents and schools. Every day, their platforms reach millions of children, and they should do more to make those spaces safer.

A school shooting is unlike most crimes because everyone loses. Innocent children lose their lives. Parents lose sons and daughters. Teachers lose the sense of security they work so hard to build. Communities lose their peace. The young perpetrators also lose the lives they might have had, but their loss can never be placed on the same scale as the lives that were taken. Remembering that distinction allows us to seek justice for the victims while still asking how we can prevent another child from following the same tragic path.

When children become killers, asking how they should be punished is no longer enough. We must also ask who failed to protect them before they ever reached that point.

This is not about finding one person or one institution to blame. Tragedies like this rarely have a single cause. They happen when too many warning signs are missed, too many voices go unheard, and too many opportunities to help a child are lost.

The victims deserve justice. The next generation deserves a society that learns from this tragedy. We owe them homes where values are taught, schools where bullying is confronted, communities where warning signs are not ignored, technology that places children’s well-being above engagement, and laws that balance accountability with the belief that young lives can still be redeemed.

If the reports about another potential attack being prevented are confirmed, they offer an important lesson. Tragedies are not always inevitable. Sometimes they are prevented because someone notices a warning sign and chooses to act instead of dismissing it as a joke, a childish prank, or a plea for attention.

The next tragedy may not be prevented by a new law alone. It may be prevented by a parent who notices a child’s silence, a teacher who refuses to ignore a troubling post, a friend who speaks up, a school that acts without delay or a community that takes every warning seriously.

Every parent who sends a child to school should be able to expect one simple thing: that the child will return home safely at the end of the day. That should never be open to chance, compromise, or debate. It is a responsibility that every family, school, institution, technology company, and society must share and uphold.