23/06/2026
I don't even know how to start this.
I've been staring at my screen for a while now, reading the news, and I just can't stop thinking about the mothers and fathers who sent their children to school this past week - with a packed lunch, a kiss on the forehead, maybe a reminder to behave - and never got them back the same way. Or never got them back at all. 😔
Grabe kaayo. This is not the world we thought we were raising children in.
In just ONE WEEK, three violent attacks happened inside Philippine schools:
📌 June 16 - A grade 8 girl, a transferee, walked into a grade 5 classroom at Bethel Academy in Cavite, armed with a kitchen knife and st^bbed 7 young pupils. Seven children who were just sitting in class. Two of them needed surgery.
📌 June 19 - Three days later, again in Cavite, a senior high school student was st^bbed 5 times by another student. Inside school. In broad daylight.
📌 June 22 - Yesterday morning, at San Jose National High School in Tacloban, two boys - 14 and 15 years old - walked into campus carrying a .38 and a 9mm and opened fire on their classmates. 4 children are now d3ad. More than a dozen are wounded. And an entire school - an entire city- is now left asking why.
I keep coming back to one thing: THESE ARE CHILDREN. The victims. And also the ones who did this. Children.
What does that tell us about what we are - or aren't - doing?
The Tacloban sh00ters reportedly said they were bullied. I'm not saying that justifies anything - it absolutely does not. But it makes me stop and ask: did anyone notice? Did anyone check in on them before it got to this point? Were there signs that adults around them missed, or maybe chose to ignore?
And the girl in Cavite - 14 years old, a transferee, walked into a room full of younger kids with a knife. What was happening in that child's life? What was she carrying that nobody saw?
I'm not here to defend what they did. I'm here because I believe that 🎻🎻 like this doesn't just appear out of thin air (well unless gi sapian sila). Somewhere along the way, something broke - and nobody caught it in time.
And here's where I get personal.
Before anything else - I want to be upfront: I don't have children. Well most of you here on my page might already know. So I'm not speaking from the experience of being a parent, and I don't pretend to. Everything I'm about to say comes from someone who was once a child herself, who watched her close friendds and family raise their kids, who has sat with them through their struggles and listened to their children grow up. Take it for what it is - an outside perspective, offered with love, not judgement.
I grew up not being heard. I don't say that to gain sympathy - I say it because I think a lot of our generation did, and we need to be honest about what that does to a child.
Bisan unsa ka gamay sa sayop, it becomes a whole production. A whole day. Sometimes I'd find myself locked inside the bathroom, sitting on the cold floor, wondering what exactly I did that was so unforgivable. Not just hours. A whole day. Mao siguro ni karon nga tig tambayan nako sa CR dugay kaayo mahuman ug kaligo.
I'm not angry about it anymore. I've made peace with it. But I carry it. And I think about it a lot when I see news like this - because I wonder how many of these children, both the ones who were hurt and the ones who caused the hurt, were also sitting somewhere feeling like nothing they did was ever enough. Feeling like they didn't matter. Feeling like they were too much trouble to deal with gently.
That kind of pain doesn't just go away. It waits.
Now - and I know this might be an unpopular unsolicited opinion - let's talk about "gentle parenting."
I see it everywhere now. Validate your child's feelings. Never raise your voice. Let them express themselves. And look, I understand where it's coming from. I really do. We all want to do better than what was done to us.
But watching the children grow up nowadays, I've started to notice something. Some of these kids - raised on pure validation and zero discomfort - are struggling in ways that worry most of us. They fall apart at the smallest inconvenience. They don't know how to sit with a "no." They've been so carefully protected from hard feelings that they never learned how to process them.
Gentle parenting, done wrong, doesn't raise emotionally heathy children. It raises children who are fragile - and a fragile child in a world this hard is a child at risk.
Again, I'm not a parent. I could be wrong. But I've watched enough - closely enough - to believe that what children need is not softness without structure. They need love with boundaries. They need to be heard and held accountable. They need warmth and a spine.
The goal isn't to raise children who are always comfortable. The goal is to raise children who are capable - capable of handling pain without turning it into 🎻🎻, capable of asking for help, capable of facing hard things without crumbling or lashing out.
Mga ginikanan, guardians, godparents, even mga ate ug kuya, I know we are all busy. We are working, we are tired, we are doing our best to put food on the table and keep life moving. But society is asking - gently, and with full respect for how hard your job is - don't let "how was school?" be the only question you ask your child.
Ask them if anyone is making them feel small. Ask them if they feel safe. Ask them if they are okay - and then actually wait for a real answer, not just "okay ra."
Because children are walking into schools carrying things we don't know about. Fears. Anger. Pain. Loneliness. And if we are not the ones they feel safe talking to, they will either hold it all in until it breaks them - or act it out in ways none of us want to imagine.
Paminawa sila. Truly listen. Not to respond, not to correct, not to kasaba - just to understand. Show up with both love and direction. Be someone they respect, not just someone they fear. Be present, be firm, be warm. All three. At the same time.
And if your child is being bullied, report it. Follow up. Don't stop until someone takes it seriously. And if you notice your child pulling away, becoming angry or withdrawn or unusually quiet - that is not just a phase. That is a signal. Please don't wait.
Because somoewhere right now, there are children carrying weight that is too heavy for them - and they don't know how to put it down. Let's make sure the ones we love know they can come to us before it becomes something none of us can take back.
I am heartbroken for the families in Tacloban. For the children in Cavite who will carry the memory of that classroom for the rest of their lives. For every parent right now who is second-guessing whether to send their child to school tomorrow.
Our schools should be the safest places our children know - second to our homes. Right now, they don't feel that way - and that should make all of us uncomfortable enough to do something.
Start at home. Start tonight. Sit with your child. Put your phone down. Ask the hard questions. Be the kind of parent they don't have to hide from.
Your child needs you present. Not perfect. Not always gentle. Not always strict. Just there - fully, intentionally, consistently there.
Nasakitan tang tanan. But more than the grief, I feel a deep urgency - for all of us to show up better for the children before we lose more of them.
🙏 Prayers for all the families affected. And a gentle but firm reminder to every parent reading this: your child needs you present, not just around.
