It takes a village to stop the violence
Another school. Another act of violence. Another set of families whose lives will never be the same.
The shooting at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University high school campus is difficult to comprehend. Two young people died, including the student who carried out the attack. Two others were injured, and a teacher was reportedly targeted. Perhaps most disturbing of all, part of the attack was livestreamed on social media.
Inevitably, the questions will come.
How did the firearms get inside the school? Where was security? Were there warning signs? What could the school have done?
These questions must be asked. Schools have a duty to protect their students and personnel, and every such incident must prompt a careful examination of security protocols, emergency preparedness and systems for identifying and assisting children at risk.
But if the national conversation stops at asking what the school failed to do, we will be looking at only one part of a much larger problem.
We often say that it takes a village to raise a child. We must remember that the same principle applies when something goes terribly wrong.
A child does not become angry, alienated or deeply troubled only during the hours spent inside a classroom. Children grow up within families, neighborhoods, peer groups, online communities and a larger society. They observe how adults settle disagreements. They absorb the language we use against those who disagree with us. They see violence celebrated, humiliation turned into entertainment, cruelty rewarded with attention and outrage amplified by algorithms.
Then we expect schools to repair all of it between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m.
That is an impossible burden.
The recent incidents should compel us to take children’s mental health more seriously. Many schools remain desperately short of qualified guidance counselors and other mental-health professionals.
Think of what one counselor may be expected to carry: hundreds of children, each with a different story involving family conflict, bullying, academic pressure, poverty, loneliness, anxiety, abuse, rejection or thoughts they do not know how to express.
In many schools, there is not even one qualified counselor.
We enacted the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act precisely because we had already recognized this need. The law mandates school-based mental-health programs, care centers and new counselor positions. But a law becomes meaningful only when trained professionals and adequate resources are available to implement it.
Mental-health support cannot remain a seminar, a poster on a wall or an annual activity during Mental Health Month. It must become part of the everyday architecture of schooling.
At the same time, we must avoid suggesting that mental-health difficulties automatically lead to violence. Most people experiencing depression, anxiety or other psychological conditions are not violent. The point is not to stigmatize struggling children but to build systems that recognize distress early, respond appropriately and prevent crises from escalating.
Teachers also need support. They are often the first adults to notice that something has changed in a child: sudden withdrawal, aggression, persistent absences, alarming messages or escalating conflicts with classmates. But teachers are educators, not psychologists, psychiatrists or security officers. We cannot keep adding responsibilities to an already overburdened profession and then blame teachers when they fail to anticipate every crisis.
Teachers themselves are also increasingly becoming targets of aggression. School violence is not limited to violence among students. Teachers, school heads and other personnel may also become victims. Protecting the school community means protecting everyone in it.
Then there is social media.
Limiting children’s access to social media deserves serious discussion. Young people now inhabit digital spaces that many parents and educators barely understand. Violence can be replayed endlessly. Humiliation can be broadcast to thousands. Strangers can enter children’s lives, while destructive online communities can offer troubled young people the attention and validation they may not find elsewhere.
But banning an app or imposing an age limit will not, by itself, solve the problem.
A child disconnected from TikTok but neglected at home remains neglected. A bullied child without Facebook remains bullied. A young person struggling with anger, isolation or despair does not suddenly become well because a phone has been taken away.
Digital regulation must therefore be accompanied by digital literacy, parental involvement, accountable technology platforms, accessible mental-health services and communities in which young people feel that somebody is genuinely listening.
We must also confront children’s access to firearms. Reports indicate that at least one of the weapons used in the Zamboanga attack belonged to the student’s father. When a child can obtain a deadly weapon from an adult’s possession, responsibility cannot be placed solely on the child or the school. Firearm owners have an enormous legal and moral duty to ensure that their weapons never fall into children’s hands.
Secure storage, strict accountability and enforcement of firearm regulations must therefore be part of any serious response to school violence.
After every tragedy, there is a temptation to find one institution or one person to blame: the school, the parents, social media, video games, the government or the child.
Perhaps blame gives us comfort because it makes a complicated problem appear simple.
But nothing about this is simple.
School violence is certainly a security problem. It is also a child-protection problem, a mental-health problem, a family problem, a digital-safety problem, a firearm-access problem and, ultimately, a societal problem.
Metal detectors may stop a weapon at the gate. Counselors may identify children in distress. Teachers may recognize warning signs. Parents may monitor online behavior and secure firearms. Technology companies may intervene against harmful content and communities. Government may regulate weapons and digital platforms while investing in mental-health services.
We need all of these.
Because if it truly takes a village to raise a child, then when children begin hurting — and even killing — one another, the village cannot simply stand outside the school gate and ask:
“What did the school do wrong?”
Perhaps the more difficult and important question is:
“What have we allowed our village to become?”
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Levi E. Elipane ([email protected]) is a professor and deputy dean of the College of Advanced Studies at the Philippine Normal University. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of PNU.
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