There are many points worth commenting on about the shooting incident at the San Jose National High School, Tacloban City last June 22. I will mention a few of them that I consider very important and actionable. Clearly, many things were not all right in this situation.
The seriousness of the situation was not in the headlines until the event exploded, leaving three students dead and fifteen students injured by bullet wounds.
I look at a series of shortcomings over time. It is useful in understanding the situation.
The two suspects, called children in conflict with the law (CICL), were fourteen and over fifteen years old, had access to cellphones, and were addicted to the game called Gorebox, a computer game that features violence, including shootings. It seems that the two suspects transformed the scenario in a computer game to real life.
The incident occurred during class hours at a high school with an enrollment of 2,500 students. The school is only a kilometer from the San Jose Police station and less than three kilometers from the City Mayor's residence. The school appeared to have neither a guidance counselor nor a guidance office, suggesting that this was not a priority for the school until this sad and horrific incident.
The gun used to kill the victims was issued to a police officer who used to bring one of the children (alias Nash) involved to the Philippine National Police headquarters firing range. In the Senate hearing, the police officer admitted to bringing the child, alias Nash, to that firing range only once because he wanted to be a police officer. A question arises: if he was brought to the firing range only once, how could he have fired 33 shots, even reloading the gun?
It was obvious that, as she testified, she was being coached by her lawyer, who whispered to her from behind. She also said that she kept the gun in a plastic cabinet, and it was not in a difficult-to-open place like a steel vault.
The statements of the police officer were clearly framed to reduce, if not eliminate, her responsibilities, accountability, and negligence in the safe-keeping of the gun (which was used by Nash to fire 33 shots into the victims).
Now comes the categorization of the crime and the restraints on liberty that the law on Juvenile Justice and Welfare imposes. Nash cannot be criminally charged because he is protected by law, which exempts a child his age from criminal responsibility. While the other CICL, alias Rod, was be charged because he acted with he acted with discernment. The evidence showed the two planned the shooting and even considered the fact of non-imprisonment like “I can shoot any number of students I want because I am not going to jail anyway”.
What I see as a major problem with this law is that it does not establish standards or measures for corresponding confinement in the Bahay, given the gravity of crimes committed by youth offenders. It all depends on the judgment of DSWD personnel as to how long (at least a year) the CILC stays in the Bahays. Thus, Nash, who killed three students, can stay in the Bahay for only a few days after a year.
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