ja ୨ৎ

I am so fucking frustrated and angry that I am now seeing the words SCHOOL SHOOTING being reported in MY OWN COUNTRY. Putangina. Seriously. Less than two months after Tacloban, we are now talking about another deadly school shooting, this time at Ateneo de Zamboanga University. And I need to ask the same question again: WHERE ARE THESE CHILDREN GETTING THE ACCESS AND THE CONFIDENCE TO DO THIS? A Junior High School student reportedly managed to bring TWO firearms—a pistol and a rifle—into a school. A CHILD. How does a child get access to firearms like these? How does a child become familiar and confident enough to use them? How does a child manage to bring TWO guns inside a school? I said this after Tacloban and I’ll say it again: THERE WAS NEGLIGENCE SOMEWHERE. Negligence in adult supervision. Negligence in firearm custody and access. Negligence in school security. Negligence in recognizing warning signs. Negligence in how we supervise what children consume online. And possibly failures we haven’t uncovered yet. INVESTIGATE IT. Trace the firearms. Determine who owns them and how a minor accessed them. Determine whether they were properly secured. Determine how TWO firearms entered a school. Because children do not manufacture guns in their bedrooms. They ACCESS them. And somewhere between the owner of that firearm and a child pulling the trigger, an adult safeguard failed. But gun access is only part of this conversation. Children today have almost unrestricted access to the internet. Violence becomes content. Graphic videos circulate like memes. Criminals become personalities. Algorithms can feed increasingly disturbing material to someone for hours. And reports that this shooting may have been recorded or livestreamed make that conversation even more disturbing. I’m NOT saying the internet alone creates school shooters. Human behavior is far more complicated than that. I’m saying we would be incredibly irresponsible to pretend that children’s constant exposure to violence and sensationalism isn’t something worth examining. And please, stop looking for ONE thing to blame. We can address bullying AND demand responsible parenting. We can improve mental-health support AND secure firearms. We can strengthen school security AND examine children’s online environments. These things are not mutually exclusive. And for the love of God, STOP MAKING DEAD CHILDREN A POLITICAL SCOREBOARD. I don’t care which administration or political color you support. CHILDREN ARE DYING. We had Tacloban. Now we have Zamboanga. I desperately do not want to watch the Philippines slowly normalize the phrase “school shooting.” This should horrify us NOW—not after the fifth incident, not after the tenth, and certainly not when active-shooter drills become a normal part of Filipino childhood. Parents need to parent. Gun owners need to SECURE THEIR FUCKING FIREARMS. Schools need to reassess security. Government needs to examine whether our laws and enforcement around firearm custody, access by minors, school safety, and children’s online protection are actually enough. And as a society, we need to stop giving children unrestricted access to adult spaces, adult content, adult violence and apparently, in some cases, adult weapons, then acting completely shocked when something goes horribly wrong. There was negligence. Find where it happened. Find who was responsible. Fix what failed. Hold people accountable. Because after Tacloban and now Zamboanga, “we never thought this could happen here” is no longer an acceptable excuse.