TWO cases of high-profile school shootings recently happened in the country: on June 22, 2026, at the San Jose National High School in Tacloban City, where three students were killed and 20 others injured; and on Aug. 18, 2026, at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University in Zamboanga City, where two people were killed, including the perpetrator, and 23 others were injured. The suspects in the Tacloban shooting are reportedly two minors aged 14 and 15. The assailant in Zamboanga City was a Grade 8 student of the school.
During the congressional deliberations for the Department of the Interior and Local Government’s proposed budget for 2027, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla suggested that “... video games played a large part in how... (the shooters) went down the rabbit hole and examining other means of retribution on their wronged part.” Earlier, Remulla also said that in the Tacloban shooting, “the two students reportedly got bullied so they got influenced by video games” presumably to resort to gun violence. By contrast, the attack in Zamboanga City, according to Remulla, was neither “a case of bullying” nor “a case of a teacher maltreating a student.” The interior secretary hinted that “chat groups” in a video game that the student was playing may have contributed to his “radicalization.”
A study conducted by Alfred University in New York, USA, found that revenge (i.e., “they want to get back at those who have hurt them”) and bullying were identified by 87 percent and 86 percent of respondents, respectively, as top reasons why school shootings happen (in their country). Only 37 percent of the respondents said that “violence on TV, in movies, in videos, and in computer and video games” was a possible reason for attacking.
The respondents in this study are American students but how different are they really from Filipino students in this particular matter?
I notice an uncontrollable urge for government officials for “kupog-kupog” explanations regarding this social dilemma. Kupog-kupog, according to hiligaynon dot pinoy dictionary dot com, means “to be anxious” or “be in a hurry.” For instance, Kabataan party-list representative Renee Co was quick to suggest that a “culture of violence” in the country was among the factors in the successive school shootings, pointing to Oplan Tokhang and the “continuous harassment of student-leaders.”
Remulla rejected Co’s hyper-imagination, saying: “Tokhang is no longer a state policy. It has not been so in the last four years. The harassment of student leaders is also not a state policy.”
If “tokhang” was indeed responsible for the creation of Co’s conjured-up “culture of violence” in the country, it should have — logically — manifested itself in a deluge of school shootings from 2016 to 2022, instead of 2026. The kupog-kupog Co is intent on politicizing the shootings to the point that she — and even Remulla — eagerly portrays students in this country as mindless drones who would go on a rampage just because they were exposed to violent content in media and online games.
It is essentially the same approach as President Bongbong Marcos and Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon, who view our people as zombies with the pathological urge to throw trash onto the streets, thus causing blockage in the drainage and eventually flooding in Metro Manila. If such were true, why do millions of Metro Manila residents still wait for garbage trucks to collect their trash? Why not just throw rubbish in the streets rather than patiently stand by for the regular garbage collection?
Logic dictates that trash is accumulated in the pumping stations during floods because garbage in certain parts of Metro Manila is not collected — or not collected regularly — as they should. Trash in the pumping stations indicates a patent failure by the government to perform its tasks.
In the same vein, if there is indeed a “culture of violence” enveloping our school children, logic demands that there ought to be more of these shooting incidents. How can millions of Filipino students be simultaneously exposed to violent content in media and video games to only yield two shooting incidents, if the kupog-kupog Remulla is correct?
The common denominator in Tacloban and Zamboanga City from news reports is how easily the shooters were able to get their hands on guns. In the same Alfred University study, 56 percent of the respondents said that the availability of guns was a reason for the repeated shootings. Thus, the combination of bullying and the access to deadly weapons proved fatal in the Tacloban shooting. In the Zamboanga City shooting, all we know thus far is how easy the student was able to secure a gun as well. Remulla has ruled out bullying as a factor. Maybe we should take a look at the other factors mentioned in the Alfred University study (together with the percentage of respondents who identified them as possible reasons) to get a better understanding of the phenomenon of school shootings:
1. Want to get back at those who have hurt them, 87 percent.
2. Other kids pick on them, make fun of them, or bully them, 86 percent.
3. Don’t value life, 62 percent.
4. Have been victims of physical abuse at home, 61 percent.
5. Have mental (health) problems, 56 percent.
6. Easy for them to get a gun, 56 percent.
7. Don’t get along with their parents, 55 percent.
8. Have witnessed physical abuse at home, 54 percent.
9. Drink alcohol or use drugs, 52 percent.
10. Do not have any good friends, 49 percent.
11. See violence on TV, in movies, in videos, and in computer and video games, 37 percent.
12. Violence is a way of life in their neighborhood, 34 percent.
13. Other kids encouraged them to do it, 28 percent.
14. Teachers don’t care about them, 26 percent.
15. Afraid for their own safety, 20 percent.
16. Bored, 18 percent.
These are angles worth pursuing, particularly in the Zamboanga City shootings.
In any case, the government needs to be more data-driven in talking about the shootings. From what I have read in news reports, I am led to believe that Remulla and others are kupog-kupog style just shooting in the dark with their take on the school shootings in the country.
