The influence of social media is not primarily a legal phenomenon. It is cultural: it lives in what we normalize, what we notice, and whether the friend who reads ‘leave school if you don’t want to get hurt’ treats it as a joke or a warning.
On 18 September, a Grade 9 student at Banga National High School in South Cotabato opened fire on students in a neighboring classroom. Two 14-year-olds were killed and eight others were wounded before the gunman took his own life.
It was the country’s third deadly school shooting since June. We can no longer tell ourselves this only happens elsewhere.
The early findings point to failures we can name. The gun belonged to the shooter’s father, a DepEd disaster risk officer who kept three licensed firearms that were not secured well enough to keep the boy out.
Notes on the boy’s phone described a long struggle with depression, which his parents discovered in April and tried, without success, to address. According to friends, he had been planning the attack since August and warned classmates in a group chat to stay away from school on 18 September.
Each of these is a point where the law can intervene.
First, safe storage. Republic Act 10591 governs who may own a firearm, but it says far too little about how that firearm must be kept. Congress should impose an explicit safe-storage duty, with criminal liability when an owner’s negligence gives a minor access to a gun.
As Secretary Jonvic Remulla has stressed, the right to own a firearm in the Philippines is not enshrined in the Constitution. It is a privilege, and that privilege must come with responsibility and accountability. Verified storage compliance should therefore be a condition of licensing and renewal, with revocation as the penalty for failure.
Second, mental health care in schools. RA 12080, the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act, already mandates school-based care and counselors. It needs funding, staffing, and a threat-assessment protocol, so that when a student warns of violence in a group chat, there is a clear and protected channel for reporting it.
Third, platform accountability. The DILG plans to meet with the DICT on measures to limit children’s exposure to dangerous online content. The Anti-OSAEC law already imposes duties on internet intermediaries. A similar duty of care regarding minors and violent extremist content is a reasonable next step.
But the law can go only so far. No statute can sit beside a 15-year-old at two in the morning as an online community convinces him that violence gives meaning. The influence of social media is not primarily a legal phenomenon. It is cultural: it lives in what we normalize, what we notice, and whether the friend who reads “leave school if you don’t want to get hurt” treats it as a joke or a warning.
At the end of the day, a cultural problem demands a cultural solution. Families must ask. Schools must listen. Peers must speak up. The law is the scaffolding. Culture is the structure we still have to build.
