They say parents before were better.

Maybe. Some were better. Some were just louder. Tired. Afraid. Some loved badly because nobody taught them how to love gently.

Then again, there was no gentle parenting then. There was just parenting. Parenting that used objects.

The wall. Belt. You knelt on mongo.

You lied. Face the wall. You came home late. Mother already knew. Before you knocked, before you lied. She knew from a neighbor watering the plants.

That was the childhood before. Not better, exactly. Just visible.

The sari-sari store knew who bought Coke after school. The tricycle driver knew who rode with whom. The auntie knew which child came home late, which had new friends and whose child was starting to look different.

Annoying, nosy, suffocating sometimes. But public. The bad influence was outside. At the kanto. Basketball court. Arcade. With names. Faces. Parents.

Now the child is home. Very good child. Very quiet. Says “opo.” Eats their vegetables. Goes to their room. And disappears. Not to the street. To the phone.

The old parent feared the child would leave the house. The new parent fears the child could vanish inside it.

“Nasa bahay lang naman.” They’re just at home.

Very comforting. Very wrong. Before, parents saw the messy child. Sulking. Acting strange. The trouble showed up in cutting classes, barkada, cigarettes, fights, hanging out too late.

Now? The child can look safe while living in another world.

Adult world. Adult anger. Sex. Violence. Humiliation. Adult revenge. Adult despair. All crammed into a child too young for adult punishment but old enough for adult poison. That is the scam.

Before, the bell rang. That was something. The bully went home. The insult got tired. Maybe you cried all the way home. Maybe punched the wall. At least the day would end.

Now? The insult comes home with you. It has screenshots. Comments. It has people laughing who were not even there.

You get humiliated once in school, then again at home, then again at midnight, then again tomorrow because someone saved the photo.

Very sick. Pain now has replay.

And the phone likes the ugly stuff. Quiet hurt? Boring. Normal sadness? A child says, “I’m not OK” and everybody claps.

The glowing thing says, “Make it louder.” “Make it worse.” “Show them.” So the child doesn’t just hurt. But performs the hurt. Rage? Big heart react. Drama? Huge.

School rampage?

That is the nightmare Tacloban, Zamboanga, Cavite, Davao exposed.

“Parents.” “Blame the parents.” “If only they were stricter parents.”

Very easy. You just shout more. Slam the table more. Bring back the slipper, the wall. Pretend fear is wisdom.

But fear is a crooked teacher. It does not always make a child good. Sometimes it makes him quiet. Teaches him the face. The dinner face. The “opo” face. The face that keeps the house calm and gets him back to his room.

That is how adults lose the child and still think they are in charge. Because the real confession goes somewhere else now.

Not to the mother. The father. The teacher. But to strangers. TG. Algorithms.

Something else raised part of the child the parents never met.

It knows what he watches, repeats. It knows the wound, the itch. So it keeps feeding the thing that keeps him there. A little more rage, humiliation and revenge. A little more proof that the world is rotten and he is right to hate it.

Now Congress wants an answer. A social media ban. CCTVs around schools. A violent game ban. And, after all that, Congress still has to face the thing no ban can explain away. The gun.

Because Tacloban is not only about children seeing too much too soon. It is about adults seeing too little until it’s too late.