Maybe the gun was not the first weapon. Maybe the phone was.

It’s the sick little possibility the Senate raised yesterday about Tacloban: before the boys allegedly picked up guns, someone online may have picked them.

A groomer. A recruiter. Maybe a wider network. Maybe not. The leads are now with the NBI.

The stranger does not have to wait outside the school anymore, just lurk inside the glowing rectangle in a child’s hands.

Very nice. Very budget friendly. Fits right in the pocket. So does a lighter. We still don’t hand one to a 10-year-old.

Now watch it. The moment Robin Padilla suggests, “Maybe children shouldn’t have personal gadgets.” Everybody loses their minds.

“You’re taking away their freedom, bobo!”

Huh?

Children can’t buy cigarettes, alcohol. Can they buy guns? Drive? Sign contracts?

Apparently the only thing we decided every child absolutely must have is unlimited private access to the entire internet.

Incredible.

We childproof the house. Cabinet locks. Child lock. Vivamax lock. Then we spend 20 years teaching “Don’t talk to strangers,” while handing every stranger on earth a direct line into our kids’ bedroom.

“Happy 9th birthday!” Brilliant.

Not long ago, a child without a phone was a child.

The lights still worked. Schools confiscated phones. Teenagers still studied. Flirted, fought, gossiped, got bored, punished, made friends, went home.

Nobody said, “How will Nash survive without Discord?”

Nobody needed an iPhone just to become a teenager. We already know children can survive without the tablet. We did. Today, a child without one is “deprived.”

Deprived of what? Predators?

We built the world’s biggest playground then forgot predators like playgrounds too. We spend so much on enforcing immigration then every child carries an unguarded border crossing in her pocket. Very secure.

Who decided the whole internet belongs to a child? Who? It just happened.

We would never have built this from scratch. Imagine Risa today: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a wonderful invention. Every child carries a camera and strangers can contact them. Nobody verifies people. Messages can disappear. Parents won’t see. Should we approve it?”

Not one senator would say yes. No mother would say yes. Yet that’s what we normalized. We sold the product first, asked the safety questions later.

Childhood disappeared behind the password. It used to happen where people could see it.

Parents. Teachers. Neighbors. The tricycle driver. Very nosy people sometimes. Also wonderful people. Very useful. Somebody noticed when something was wrong.

Now the worst conversation in a child’s life can happen in a locked chat no decent adult will ever see.

Still, the experts go: “We survived TV.”

Please. TV talked at children. The tablet let strangers talk back. Different league.

“The problem is bad parents.”

Some. Some are exhausted working two jobs. Some parents do everything right and still lose to companies employing thousands of behavioral scientists, designers, engineers to keep their kids engaged. That’s not a fair fight.

Seatbelts weren’t invented because every driver was reckless. Even careful drivers crash.

They say the problem are the criminals, not the phones. Beautiful observation. Burglars are the problem, not doors. We still invented locks, punish drunk drivers, regulate alcohol, regulate guns. Amazing how two bright ideas can exist at the same time.

We don’t mean TikTok when we say students need to call home in an emergency and “Schools require computers.” We never raise digital natives as much as digital dependents. Different thing.

Of course, kids will still find a way the way drivers still speed despite speed limits. Does a law need to stop everyone to save someone?

Technology is not going away. Neither are casinos. Still, we tell our children: not yet.

We made the internet child-friendly. Very proud of ourselves. Bigger buttons. Softer colors. Cartoon guards at the gate.

Have we ever asked: Maybe the internet was never supposed to enter childhood this easily?

Maybe childhood was supposed to be harder to reach?