MANILA: The recent deadly school shooting in Tacloban City, central Philippines, may be linked to a global online extremist network that recruits and radicalises vulnerable children through popular video games, investigators and cybersecurity experts said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday (July 1).
The case highlights a growing form of online radicalisation described as nihilistic violent extremism (NVE), an ideology rooted in the belief that nothing has value and no lives matter, according to investigators.
Online predators are exploiting this ideology to systematically target lonely, socially isolated Filipino children and push them towards real-world violence, they noted.
Investigators believe the attack may be the Philippines’ first completed mass shooting linked to “764”, a faction within a global, decentralised online threat ecosystem known as “The COM”, or “The Community”.
The online extremist network includes subgroups such as No Lives Matter and the True Crime Community, and the “764” has been designated a national security threat by US federal authorities.
Two student suspects, aged 14 and 15, carried out the June 22 attack at San Jose National High School, killing three students and wounding 20 others. The 14-year-old was identified to have fired the fatal shots.
He had allegedly been playing the violent sandbox game Gorebox and had posted gun-shooting content online shortly before the attack.
A sandbox game is a genre where players can freely explore, build, or destroy a virtual world with few rules or set objectives.
The case has already ignited a debate over whether the Philippines should lower its minimum age of criminal responsibility, currently set at 15 under the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act.
Senator Risa Hontiveros, who chairs the Senate committee on women, children, family relations and gender equality, said there were indications both suspects had been radicalised by “764” through the Facebook account of a user with the name “Sedykh Ryazanov”, who is suspected to be the adult groomer behind the attack.
At the hearing, Hontiveros showed screenshots showing that the account had posted comments on a profile allegedly belonging to one of the suspects after the shooting, instructing the teen to delete his Discord, Reddit and Telegram accounts to destroy evidence. Ryazanov’s account has since been deactivated.
“There may be a broader network operating here and it must be stopped before there are more victims,” said Hontiveros.
A 7-stage trap
Cybersecurity expert Angel Redoble laid out in detail how the network operates at the hearing. He described the recruitment process as moving through three layers before culminating in seven stages of radicalisation.
The first layer is the platform, like online games where the children are first encountered. The groomers often target children who are lonely, socially isolated or struggling with mental health issues. He said algorithms make the hunt easier.
“The algorithm learns what each user responds to and serves them progressively more of it,” said Redoble, who is from the Philippine Institute of Cybersecurity Professionals. “It has become a weapon.”
From there, children are moved into the second layer, such as private gaming servers and encrypted messaging apps like Discord and Telegram, where relationships are deepened away from public view.
The third layer is manipulation involving psychological coercion, isolation from family, escalating demands and blackmail.
The seven stages move from initial targeting through befriending and trust-building, to isolation, coercion and what Redoble called “status through brutality”, where members earn standing in the network based on how extreme their actions are.
He said the normalisation of violence follows, with the final stage being real-world violent action.
Open-source intelligence analyst Bret Morales, who told the hearing that he had infiltrated “764” in 2025, confirmed that local groomers are already operating in the Philippines, including through physical meet-ups in locations he declined to name publicly.
He said hours after the Tacloban shooting went viral, posts glorifying the killers began appearing across online platforms.
Deputy Director Police Colonel Richmond Tadina said the Philippine National Police’s Anti-Cybercrime Group has conducted 17 rescue operations involving minors since October 2025, pulling out 24 children from The COM network’s reach.
He said all the rescued minors had been exposed to gore content, while five had resorted to self-harm.
A system blind to the threats
The Philippines’ cybersecurity ecosystem was not built to detect or prevent these NVE threats, said cybersecurity expert Ashley Acedillo, a non-resident fellow at Manila-based think-tank Stratbase Institute.
He said during the hearing that the country’s laws were written for an analogue world. He also said the Department of Education’s anti-bullying framework was designed to catch a black eye or a fist fight, but not a child sitting quietly at his desk while being systematically radicalised through his phone.
“A physical weapon was involved in the Taclobon shooting. But the trigger was pulled inside the digital world,” Acedillo said.
The Philippine government has already temporarily blocked Gorebox, with the cybercrime agency saying this was intended to prevent other members of the same network from being ordered to carry out copycat attacks.
But Redoble cautioned that the measure has limits, as tech-savvy children can circumvent the ban. He also said that for every channel taken down, groomers simply create new ones
Hontiveros said the Senate committee would craft recommendations covering every layer of the threat, from gaming platforms and messaging apps to app stores, schools and families.
Several senators have already pushed for stiffer regulations to protect minors from harmful content in online games. Senate President Win Gatchalian has also renewed his push to ban minors from accessing social media and from using smartphones in schools.
He also called out platforms for allegedly treating child safety as a business calculation.
“How can it be a business decision when our kids are being targeted and preyed on?” he said during the hearing. “This is the welfare of our children.” - The Straits Times/ANN
