They were children, fine, we know, everybody knows. One was 14. Then 15. Very young. Very protected. Very “please lower your voice, this is a minor.”

But here’s what ruins the lullaby: Police accounts put the heavier firing on the younger suspect.

The kid people want to imagine as too young to understand may be the one police tie to the 9mm, the 40 shells, the magazine reload.

Which one was 14? Exactly. That is the problem with this case. Even the faces do not give you the comfort you want.

The older suspect, police said, had the .38 and fired only once. Terrible fact. Completely disrespectful to the nursery rhymes.

So spare us the lecture from the soft people with the nice vocabulary: “minor,” “child in conflict with the law,” “they’re just kids.”

Protect their names. Protect their rights. Keep them out of Bilibid. Give them lawyers, doctors, due process, the whole battery.

But “they’re just kids” is for mischief, stupidity, dares. For punching a wall. For cutting classes. For one dumb thing done in snappy because the brain had yet to arrive.

“They’re just kids” did not stop the gun. That is the fact nobody knows where to put.

And, most of all, “they’re just kids” does not explain police saying screenshots suggest Tacloban may have been planned for more than a month.

That is not some kid with soup for brains failing to understand that a gun is not a toy.

A month is not some kid losing it because somebody teased him and suddenly everything went black.

No. A month is mornings. Going home. Eating dinner. Charging the phone. Sleeping. Waking up and the plan is still there.

If the police are right, this thing had chances to die. A month gives the mind exits. Fear was an exit. Doubt. It could have died after the boredom. Kids get bored. They get distracted by games, TikTok, homework, Roblox, nothing, anything. A plan can die from ordinary life if the mind lets it die.

A month is the mind returning to the same place and not leaving. That is why this matters. Because we pretend premeditation means nothing when the hand is smaller.

The law protects children because they may not foresee consequence. But planning is living before the consequence and still walking toward it.

And while you think about that, think about this: Police say the conversations may have shown awareness of RA 9344, and that they may have planned like they knew exactly how young they were.

The police reports accuse the minors and our imagination: We never believed a child could carry that much consequence.

Age should presume limited understanding. Not guarantee innocence from understanding.

Do not spit on the dead by calling planning innocence.

When a child kills another child, the law cannot love only one child. The victims were children, too. Three students. Dead. “Minor” cannot begin to cover that much blood.