Nightmare/dream

Like many of you, I just can’t wrap my head around what happened last June 22 at the San Jose National High School in Tacloban. How two teenagers could go to school as usual on a Monday morning, attend flag ceremony and then, minutes later, start shooting their schoolmates – a barrage of gunfire, 35 in all, 34 from a 9mm Glock and one from a .38-caliber pistol.

In November 2013, Tacloban was devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda. Thirteen years on, the city and its people have risen up, rebuilt their lives from a disaster dealt by Nature. Now they are facing a tragedy dealt by man; worse, by children. There is a scientific explanation for a monster storm, a convergence of sea surface temperatures, atmospheric conditions, ocean tides, etc. But how to explain, how to understand, why and how two Grade 9 students could turn into murderous thugs?

Again like many of you, my first reaction was punitive – throw them in jail, and throw the book at them – especially after reports surfaced of the text exchange between the two shooters planning out the attack and discussing evading long prison terms because they are minors, including several texts of “hahaha.” “Makukulong ba ko?” the older of the two, just 15 years old, asked when he was apprehended. Now he could face charges of murder, frustrated murder and serious physical injuries. Hahaha pa din?

The younger shooter – who fired 34 shots from two magazines, meaning he had to reload – is supposed to undergo “intervention” after being “evaluated.” Being just 14 years old, he is exempt from criminal liability, per RA 9344 or the Juvenile Justice Act of 2006, as amended by RA 10630 in 2013. The provisions have been cited often enough these past few days – no criminal liability for those under 15, liability for those 15 to 18 only if it can be proven that they acted “with discernment.”

Instead of prison, the juvenile offenders – they cannot be called criminals but CICL, children in conflict with the law – undergo “mandatory intervention” at Bahay Pagasa, which RA 10630 mandates each LGU to put up. However, there are reportedly only 11 such Houses of Hope set up nationwide, since many – most – LGUs cannot afford such a facility, an unrealistic provision of a well-meaning law. My city has one, staffed by trained social workers, counselors and house parents; the kids get to study, online and in school, the latter under special permission and conditions.

It may not be very PC to say so, but today’s teenagers are not as innocent as we would like to think. The youth no longer live in an idealistic world of patintero and Superman. With the enormous amount of information available to every kid with access to a cellphone or tablet,  it’s Roblox and GoreBox and Minecraft and I don’t know what else. They “play” at shooting rivals, blasting enemies to smithereens and annihilating anything and anyone that gets in their way to ultimate victory – or even just to the next level of the game. Shooting people with real guns is not a “game;” but do they comprehend that difference?

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Some years back, a friend insisted I needed a gun, since he viewed my job as fraught with danger (all those reports of media killings). Over my vigorous protest, he got me a small handgun and helped me get all the permits needed to own and carry one. I kept the gun, still in its box, in my camphor chest, under the winter coats. The box of bullets was kept in another cabinet. No one in my household knew there was such a weapon at home.

When the time came to renew the gun license and the PTCFOR – permit to carry firearm outside residence – I found the process so complicated and cumbersome I decided to surrender the gun. I visited the PNP-FEO (Firearms and Explosives Office) in Camp Crame and turned them in. Thus ended my short stint as a responsible gun owner.

That the 14-year-old shooter had so easily gotten hold of the gun is very concerning. As a police officer, the boy’s aunt certainly knows to keep her service weapon in a safe place, under lock and key so he wouldn’t be able to get hold of it. But he did – and she has to answer for that, and for the deaths and injuries her unsecured firearm caused. She also supposedly taught her nephew – a minor – how to shoot and handle a gun (he had to reload, remember?) which, believe me, is not as easy as turning on the TV (with these new smart sets, even that can be complicated).

As of now no clear motive has been established for the killing spree. The fallback reason is bullying which, in this case, doesn’t seem to apply. From the text exchange between the boys, it would seem like a thrill killing.

Do you remember what you were doing or thinking about when you were 14 or 15? I had just graduated from elementary and transferred to a new school. My concerns were would I make new friends, nice friends (I did, some I still see to this day), would my teachers be nice, would the lessons be difficult… whatever occupied my mind at the time, it certainly wasn’t shooting up the school and killing my classmates.

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I’m rooting for Argentina to once again raise the 18-karat gold World Cup trophy, but I have to give a big shout out to Cabo Verde (I had to Google where on earth it was), who meet the defending champions on Friday in the knockout quarters. I’m counting on Messi to get at least one goal past goalkeeper Vozinha, the darling of this World Cup whose IG followers have exploded from 50,000 to over 15 million, 30 times his country’s population. This is what dreams are made of.