WE ARE the youth, and we are saying this clearly: we will not normalize violence just because it comes from someone our age.
The reported school shooting incident in Tacloban City forces a conversation many people keep trying to soften. When a child commits a violent act inside a school, society rushes to explain it away. They talk about circumstances, upbringing, influence, and age. All of that may matter, but none of it erases what happened.
We are also the same generation that has to live with the consequences if this pattern continues.
Children in Conflict with the Law, or CICL, are often spoken about as if they exist outside the reach of accountability. As if age alone is enough to dissolve responsibility. But from where we stand as young people, that mindset is dangerous. Because today’s minor offender does not stay a minor forever. They grow up. They become adults in the same communities we live in. And if violence is repeatedly excused at the start, it does not magically disappear later. It matures.
We are not asking for cruelty. We are asking for seriousness.
When a young person commits a violent offense, especially something as severe as an attack inside a school, the response cannot be treated like a temporary inconvenience. The justice system cannot keep sending the message that consequences are optional depending on age. Rehabilitation should exist, yes, but rehabilitation without firm accountability becomes permission for repetition.
This is where responsibility cannot stop with the offender alone. Parents and guardians must also be part of the conversation. Not as an afterthought, but as a central factor. A child does not grow in isolation. Homes shape behavior, discipline, and understanding of right and wrong. When that foundation collapses, the impact does not stay inside the house. It reaches schools, streets, and strangers.
We also need to stop pretending that facilities like Bahay Pag-Asa are some kind of waiting room for troubled youth. These centers must be structured, disciplined environments with clear rules and consequences. Not places that feel temporary or meaningless. If intervention is real, it must be firm enough to correct behavior, not simply contain it until release.
At the same time, we reject the idea that CICL should be permanently discarded by society. That is not justice. That is how cycles of harm deepen. Accountability does not mean a lifetime of exclusion. It means consequences that are real, corrective, and serious enough to prevent repetition.
But we also cannot ignore where this begins.
Violence is not born in courtrooms or detention centers. It begins in homes where conflict is unmanaged, in communities where aggression is normalized, and in systems that respond too late. If the government is serious about preventing another Tacloban incident, it must confront not only the offender, but the environment that produced the offender. That includes addressing domestic violence, strengthening school safety, and ensuring that intervention happens before tragedy, not after.
Even public leaders are not outside this responsibility. When officials tolerate violent culture, ignore warning signs, or fail to strengthen child protection systems, they contribute to a society where violence becomes easier to commit and harder to stop.
We are the youth, and we are telling you this plainly. We will not inherit a future where violence is excused simply because the perpetrator is young. Because we are also the ones who will grow up beside them. We will be the ones who share workplaces, streets, and communities with the same individuals society once refused to hold fully accountable.
Accountability has no age. And if we fail to teach that now, we will all be forced to live with what comes after.
- Ayesha Antonio
