What’s happening to our schools?

By Artchil B. Fernandez

First, two student-athletes died in a military-style boot camp at the beginning of the month. This week, three students died and 20 others were injured in what could be the worst school shooting incident in the country. What’s happening to our schools? This is the question that haunts the nation today.

Philippine education is already teetering on the brink of collapse, with the latest Second Congressional Commission on Education report revealing that 87% of Grade 11 learners are not “independent readers.” It implies these students are not able to comprehend and understand material based on their level. The pedagogic woes of Philippine education are now compounded by violence hounding schools.

School shootings are unheard of in this country. They are usually associated with the United States, where shootings in schools are endemic. Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland are among the infamous school shooting incidents in the U.S. This kind of horrific and macabre school violence has finally arrived in the Philippines this week.

Two students, ages 14 and 15, sneaked in through the back door of their school, San Jose National High School in Tacloban City, Leyte, carrying a Glock pistol and a .38-caliber revolver. They started shooting at their fellow students. The entire school was thrown into pandemonium as 1,600 students and 110 teachers scampered to avoid the bullets. A police report indicated that 40 empty shells were recovered from the scene.

Before the Leyte shooting, two incidents of violence were reported in different schools in the country. On June 16, a knife attack by a Grade 8 female student left seven Grade 5 pupils of Bethel Academy of Gen. Trias, Cavite, injured. Three days later, a senior high school student repeatedly stabbed an 18-year-old student at Cavite National High School. Preceding these two incidents was the tragic drowning of Ateneo athletes, basketball players Rene Baterbonia and Divine Adili, who perished in a team-building activity. The Ateneo case is a subtle form of violence that proved to be fatal.

Chest-thumping politicians immediately capitalized on the Leyte shooting incident for cheap political gain, quickly making sweeping condemnations and proposing palliative and myopic solutions. Throw these kids in prison, make them suffer the most gruesome punishment, shoddy politicians cried, yet they failed to look into the root cause of why violence is now creeping into our schools. Their answer to school violence is more violence, a higher proportion of violence. Fight fire with superior fire. Crucify them, they demanded.

Blaming video games, poor parenting, bullying, or even the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act as culprits behind the violence in schools completely misses the point. These are symptoms rather than the source of the problem. The violence seeping into our schools has a social basis. There is a material condition that nurtures violence by providing a fertile ground for it to take root in society. If the government is truly serious in addressing violence in schools, it must dig deeper into its underlying causes.

Violence is grounded in the structure of society. It is cultivated by a social environment that encourages and glorifies violence as a solution to problems afflicting society. The institutionalization of violence as state policy is the gruesome legacy of Rodrigo Duterte, who is now on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity.

When the elder Duterte assumed the presidency in 2016, he immediately enshrined violence as the primary tool of the government to solve the maladies of society, particularly the drug problem. He inaugurated the “kill, kill, kill” policy by launching a gory and bloody war against illegal drugs. It was a ruthless war sweeping the country, particularly in poor urban neighborhoods, where thousands died, including teenagers and children. Daily, the country was swamped with news of deaths of people in drug raids.

Death and killing were normalized under the Duterte regime. Violence became normative. State-sanctioned and state-sponsored killing was the new norm. Duterte’s war on drugs made violence the centerpiece of government policy.

Violence is displayed not only in the slaughter of thousands of Filipinos but also in the language — both verbal and nonverbal — of Duterte in public discourse. He cursed and used coarse and violent words in his public speeches. Both in words and in deeds, Duterte offered violence as the answer to both personal and social ills.

The perpetrators of the Leyte shooting are 14 and 15 years old and grew up under the violent climate of Duterte’s bloody rule. They lived in a world where the social production of violence, led by the state and its instrumentalities, was ascendant. Their worldview is shaped by the violent world they lived in. It is not surprising that they turned to violence as a means to address the personal and social discomfort that bedevils them. Their action cannot be separated from the violent social reality they were raised in. If the vice president can threaten the president with violence to settle a political dispute, why can’t impressionable teenagers use the same against those they thought wronged them?

The encroachment of violence in our schools today is just a manifestation of its predominance in Philippine society. Violence is not only found in schools; it has permeated everyday life, as expressed, for example, in traffic altercations and road rage, which often lead to shootings. The culture of violence now deeply embedded in Filipino social life is the vestige of Rodrigo Duterte’s violent and bloody rule. School shootings are one of the likely outcomes when violence becomes the norm of society.

If violence in schools and other areas of society is to be addressed properly, the culture of violence and its infrastructure must be dismantled. Dutertismo, which glorifies violence, must be rooted out and exorcised from the body politic to turn the tide of violence now inundating the country. Beyond individuals, the structural and social source of violence must be dealt with to free Filipino society from its grip.