PBBM balks over socmed ban push

SINGAPORE — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Sunday acknowledged the difficulty of deciding whether to impose a total ban on social media use by minors, despite proposals from lawmakers to restrict their access.

The Senate recently passed a bill seeking to prohibit minors from accessing high-risk digital services, amid concerns that young people could be groomed online into committing violent acts. The proposed measure comes amid a series of school shootings involving students in the Philippines.

“First of all, it’s not surprising at all that the legislators will really do this and ban whatever it is that we feel is influencing our kids to do these terrible things. Now that we have made a response, we have to look at it further to examine really what the causes are... The question that I always ask when we started discussing this and talking to — this is not a police problem or an education problem; this is a psychological problem,” he said during the Kapihan Forum with Philippine media at the Hilton Hotel here.

The President said the cases of school shootings vary; that’s why they want to really know what makes these children in conflict commit the said crime.