CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, (Philippines): A cascading “collapse” of family guidance, school security, and government regulation is turning Philippine classrooms into killing fields, a criminology expert said on Wednesday (Sept 23).
Dr Gerry Caño, president of the Asian Criminology Society and Professional Criminology Associations in the Philippines, criticised the Philippine National Police (PNP) and state agencies for treating recent fatal school shootings “as isolated incidents” rather than symptoms of a deep-seated institutional breakdown.
Caño, who also serves as the national dean of Phinma Education and sits on advisory councils for the PNP Internal Affairs Service and Anti-Cybercrime Group, pointed to the “erosion of foundational institutions” as the root cause of the violence.
“There is a collapse in the family where parenting skills are substituted by gadgets,” he stressed. “Second is the collapse in the school. The school failed to provide the necessary safety and security for the learning of our students.”
Caño’s remarks came in the wake of three high-profile campus attacks that shocked the country this year.
On June 22, two teenage students launched a fatal attack at a public high school in Tacloban City, killing three students and wounding 20 others.
In August, another fatal shooting occurred at a Jesuit-run university campus in Zamboanga, leaving two dead, including the student gunman, and injuring 23 others.
The most recent occurred last Friday, Sept. 18, when a Grade 9 student opened fire inside a classroom at Banga National High School in South Cotabato. The rampage left three students dead, including the 16-year-old shooter, and six others wounded.
The criminologist noted that those incidents were also due to “a catastrophic regulatory failure,” specifically highlighting the unchecked proliferation of deadly weapons and unregulated social media access.
“There is a serious danger with over 600,000 units of loose firearms undocumented by the government,” Caño warned. “These are firearms that (could) possibly end up in violent hands.”
Investigations into the recent school tragedies validate Caño’s concern regarding negligent gun storage by owners.
“The PNP took no concrete action as they thought this was just an isolated case,” he said, pointing out that the premier agency mandated to protect lives has failed to address years of escalating school violence.
In the Tacloban attack, one of the teenage shooters used a 9mm Glock 17 service firearm stolen from an aunt who is an active police officer.
Similarly, the Zamboanga shooter accessed two guns, including a government-issued Bureau of Customs service firearm, left unattended inside his father’s vehicle.
In the Banga incident, the shooter forcibly opened a safety storage vault where the gun owned by his father was kept.
“The incident in Tacloban should have been the signal for the government and the PNP to be strict in monitoring the implementation of firearms safety requirements, including licenses, testing, safety boxes, safety deposits, or safety vault requirements to ensure that firearms are secured and not accessed daily,” Caño told the Inquirer.
As offenders increasingly adopt digital tools and violent extremism finds footing online, he said shifting from reactive security to proactive prevention requires strict arms control, social media regulation, and a return to active parenting. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
