Tacloban deserves justice, not Robin’s dangerous simplicity

Last week, the nation was shaken when two minors, aged 15 and 14, armed with handguns, opened fire inside their school in Tacloban, killing three students and injuring several others. The tragedy stunned many Filipinos. Before this, the Philippines never had a school shooting incident. Many are struggling to comprehend how something that they only read about or watched unfold in news reports from the United States, Europe and elsewhere has now become a reality in our own country.

According to reports, the two minors had easy access to firearms. One of them has an aunt who is a police officer, who was brought to a shooting range and was taught how to handle and fire a gun. If these reports are true, they raise deeply troubling questions. Why would a police officer, someone sworn to protect the public, bring minors to a shooting range, give them access to firearms and teach them how to shoot?

It is not only grossly irresponsible, it is also illegal. Guns are not toys. They are lethal weapons that demand maturity, discipline and sound judgment. Yet we have repeatedly seen adults brandish and even use firearms in road rage incidents, disputes and other acts of violence. If many adults cannot be trusted to own and use guns responsibly, how much more children, whose judgment and self-control are still developing?

I deeply empathize with the families of the victims. There is no rhyme or reason in this world why such a tragedy has befallen them. I also understand the public’s profound grief, shock and anger. I myself am not even sure what I would have felt, or done, had something like this happened to someone I love. Personal tragedy has a way of overwhelming reason and testing our deepest convictions.

Yet, it is precisely in moments like these that the rule of law matters most. Justice cannot be dictated solely by grief or outrage.

Under our laws, minors who commit crimes, especially heinous ones, can be held accountable. Children in conflict with the law aged 15 and above can be tried as adults and criminally prosecuted if they acted with discernment. Those aged 14 and below may likewise be deprived of their liberty for an indefinite period while undergoing intensive intervention and rehabilitation.

We distinguish between juvenile offenders and adults not because we minimize the gravity of their crimes or excuse them, but because we recognize the fundamental reality that children are still developing intellectually, emotionally and morally. Their capacity for judgment, control over their impulses and appreciation of consequences is not yet fully developed. This does not absolve them of responsibility. It simply requires that accountability be imposed in a manner that reflects both the seriousness of the offense and the offender’s developmental stage.

In the case of the Tacloban shooting, the 15-year-old has already been criminally charged. The more difficult question concerns the 14-year-old, who reportedly fired most of the shots. What if the evaluation shows that, despite being below the age of criminal responsibility, he acted with discernment, understood the nature and consequences of his actions and deliberately carried them out? How should society respond?

Should our laws be amended? Are they fully implemented and funded? These are all legitimate questions that deserve our honest reflection and careful deliberation. However, they must be guided by evidence, constitutional principles and what genuinely makes society safer. Policies crafted in moments of public outrage often become antidotes worse than the disease. Anger is a dangerous legislator.

This is precisely why Sen. Robin Padilla’s attempt to exploit the Tacloban tragedy to resurrect his simplistic proposal to lower the age of criminal liability to 10 is both despicable and reckless. This is what confident stupidity looks like. Ignoring empirical data and expert opinion, he wants to amend the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act so he can send children as young as 10 directly to adult prisons. Never mind that children in conflict with the law reportedly account for only about two percent of crimes nationwide or that juvenile crime has been declining for years.

And where does Robin find the nerve to lecture the nation about “accountability?” This is the very same person who served as the getaway driver of international wanted fugitive Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who fled the Senate to evade arrest over mass murder charges arising from the Duterte regime’s bloody drug war. That campaign left more than a hundred children, including Kian delos Santos, dead at the hands of abusive police personnel and extrajudicial killers, to which Bato’s only response was, “sh*t happens.”

Where was Robin’s indignation during the Duterte years when minors were gunned down in the streets without trial? Where was his demand that the killers be held accountable? Or is Robin “brave” only against 10-year-olds, but timid and silent when the killings point to his political allies?

The Tacloban shooting victims and their families need justice and accountability, not Robin’s performative outrage and simplistic solutions. We owe them the courage to confront the real reasons that made this tragedy possible, such as irresponsible access to firearms, institutional negligence and serious gaps in the implementation of our laws.

The Duterte regime already showed us where policies borne simply of anger and fear can lead. Thousands were killed, yet illegal drugs, drug lords and syndicates remain, and communities are not safer. This horrific lesson should caution us against embracing another draconian shortcut. True justice does not surrender to anger; it rises above it.