The number of school-related violence incidents surged to unprecedented levels after the deadly shooting in a high school in Tacloban in June, the Department of Education said Thursday. 

DepEd Undersecretary Malcolm Garma told the Senate committee on basic education that the pattern could be characterized as “a phenomenon of copycat,” wherein students tend to mirror or copy the violent actions of one another. 

“Mr. Chair, even before, we [already] had reports on this kind of incident. However, our observation is that, after Tacloban, they have further increased,” Garma told senators. 

The majority of the logged cases were attributed to shooting and bomb threats. 

According to Garma, social media is the primary driver of the phenomenon because the more children are exposed to the Internet, “the more that they become curious.”

One example for this, she said, is the spate of violent reports being tied to the Gorebox, a physics-based sandbox video game being blamed by police as a contributing factor to the 22 June fatal shooting at San Jose National High School in Tacloban, killing at least three students, and wounding 20 others.

Due to this, Gorebox gained significant popularity, resulting in more individuals, not only minors, downloading it. 

Citing information from the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Garma remarked that game downloads saw a sharp spike after the Tacloban school shooting, which indicated that the shooting triggered curiosity among non-users. 

“It appears that GoreBox was highlighted because of the Tacloban [shooting]. So it’s really quite difficult, Mr. Chair, because this is something that perhaps we can now say is already beyond DepEd,” Garma stressed. 

15 violent incidents in 20 days

Senator Bam Aquino, panel chair, flagged the sudden spate of school-related violence, saying his office received reports that 15 incidents had been logged in a span of 20 days. 

These incidents occurred between 16 June and 6 July, involving stabbing, bomb threats, and shooting. 

According to the lawmaker, the fatal shooting in Tacloban highlights the urgent need to pass the School Safety Act, which aims to implement safety measures in schools. 

One of the salient provisions under the proposed law is to install CCTV cameras in every school so that perpetrators and intruders can be immediately flagged by school personnel and reported to authorities.

To date, only 40 percent of public schools nationwide have CCTV cameras, some of which were donated by a group of parents and LGUs, according to DepEd.

Aquino assured that if the bill is passed into law, funding will be automatically allocated under the DepEd. 

There are CCTVs installed in San Jose National High School, although the shooting was not immediately caught on camera by the school personnel, as there are “blind spots,” Garma told the panel.

The suspects in the Tacloban shooting are ages 14 and 15 and are also students at the same school. They are now in police custody. 

Initial reports alleged that the minor suspects were motivated by a “grudge” over bullying, though police are still verifying this as the probe develops.

Cases of school bullying in the National Capital Region alone surged from 2,268 in 2023 to 2024 to 2,500 in the last school year (2024 to 2025), based on the DepEd’s data.

This, despite the enactment of the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act (RA 12080) signed by President Marcos Jr. in December 2024. 

Data from the Second Congressional Commission on Education, or EDCOM II, showed that bullying is most prevalent in highly congested public schools, driven by discriminatory teacher behavior and lower levels of institutional discipline.

Senate President Win Gatchalian urges the Department of Education (DepEd) to prioritize the deployment of school counselor associates to schools with high incidents of bullying and violence, saying the limited number of personnel should first be assigned where they are needed most.

Due to the wave of school-based violence attributed to bullying, Senate President Win Gatchalian pressed the DepEd to make use of the over P2 billion allocated to the agency to hire 10,000 school counselor associates (SCAs). 

“Under the law, school counselor associates can now function as psychologists, given the shortage of registered guidance counselors in the Philippines. So even though there is a position of registered guidance counselor, there is no one available. So that's why we created what we call a school counselor associate 1,” Gatchalian pointed out.

The Senate leader proposed that the initial deployment should focus on schools that are prone to bullying and violence, particularly those with highly congested student populations.