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Note: English is not my native language, so I use an automated
translation system to communicate. I apologize in advance if the meaning of
some phrases is conveyed incorrectly.
In the summer of 2026, the school safety
situation in the
June 16, General Trias
an attack on a middle school involving a bladed
weapon (knife); 7 victims (0 killed, 7 injured); the perpetrator was a 14-year-old
female student at the school at the time of the crime; the suspect was
apprehended at the scene;
June 22, Tacloban
a group attack on a high school involving
firearms (a semi-automatic pistol and a revolver), 8 victims (3 killed, 5
wounded); the perpetrators (two) were males, aged 14 and 15 at the time of the
crime, students at the school; one suspect was apprehended at the scene, while
the second fled but was later captured alive;
August 18, Zamboanga
attack on a high school involving the use of
firearms (a semi-automatic pistol), 24 victims (1 killed, 23 injured); the
perpetrator was a 15-year-old male student at the school; the suspect committed
suicide at the scene; the crime was livestreamed online;
September 18,
An attack on a high school involving a firearm
(a semi-automatic pistol); 10 victims (2 killed, 8 wounded); the perpetrator
was a male, 16 years old at the time of the crime, a student at the school; the
suspect committed suicide at the scene of the crime.
I would like to add another incident to this,
which, although not a mass killing, is necessary for a comprehensive analysis
of the situation. This is the case that occurred on June 19, 2026, at a public
school in
The situation in the
I closely followed developments after the first
tragedy, monitored reports in local and international media, gathered information
from other open sources, and observed the authorities’ response.
After visiting Bangu, Philippine Education
Secretary Sonny Angara officially acknowledged: «Schools have traditionally
focused on academics, with huge gaps in physical security». It was precisely
the fact that the mere presence of security personnel did not prevent the
tragedy that forced the government to take extreme measures:
- shifting some affected regions to online
learning;
- revising security protocols;
- allocating funds to purchase walk-through
metal detectors for schools;
- the introduction in several provinces of
mandatory transparent backpacks for all students.
These measures are common and often implemented
after such tragedies, but they are largely ineffective because they create only
the appearance of protection; more importantly, they do not address the actual
causes of the tragedies. I decided to examine the situation in greater detail.
I always begin my analysis with a chronology of
events; that is where one can identify the vulnerabilities that the perpetrator
exploited to commit the crime. I will reiterate that I do not have access to
police reports or the findings of situational analyses (if any were conducted
at all), so I relied solely on information from open sources.
What we found:
These facts lead to the following conclusions:
1. There is no system for predicting and
preventing threats at the national or regional level, or such a system is not
functioning;
2. There is no system for identifying students
prone to aggression and unlawful acts, or such a system is not functioning;
3. It is possible to bring oversized weapons of
any type into schools unimpeded;
4. Physical security exists only in name, for
appearances’ sake; its effectiveness in identifying, preventing, responding to,
and suppressing obvious threats is practically zero;
5. The speed and effectiveness of the police
response to incidents in educational institutions are very low.
Overall conclusion: Schools and other educational institutions in
the
1. the rapid development of digital
technologies and online communications;
2. the growth and popularity of extremist
movements and ideologies, especially among young people;
3. the near-total absence of effective
prevention, deterrence, and countermeasures against extremist movements and
their ideologies;
5. the low level of preparedness of police
services to respond to incidents at educational institutions.
This situation has
arisen not only in the
I was unable to find
the full text of the bill, but the general structure of the document is known.
It is based on three main pillars:
1. Prevention and
Mitigation of Threats.
This regulates how
schools must prepare for threats before they materialize. The Department of
Education, in collaboration with the police, must conduct a comprehensive audit
of each school’s perimeter vulnerabilities. Standards for the physical security
of school campuses, which include the mandatory installation of video
surveillance systems, the use of walk-through or handheld metal detectors, and
the construction of secure perimeter fences. Strict regulations are established
regarding the admission of unauthorized persons to the premises and the
inspection of students’ backpacks when there are compelling reasons to do so.
Expanding the staff of psychologists and their assistants to work directly in
schools with students, identifying depression, suicidal tendencies, and
bullying at early stages.
2. Emergency
Response.
This section
describes the actions of staff, students, and emergency services during an
emergency. Mandatory regular training sessions for teachers and students on
various scenarios involving attacks and other criminal acts are introduced.
Direct communication channels with the police and emergency services are
established. A mandatory lockdown protocol is implemented to minimize
casualties until police SWAT teams arrive.
3. Recovery and
Rehabilitation.
The government will
fund long-term psychological and psychosocial rehabilitation for affected
students and their family members. Regulations are being introduced to specify
how schools should resume in-person instruction following tragedies (including
the temporary incorporation of online classes and adjustment periods).
In addition, the
Senate is considering another related but separate bill, «On Children’s Online
Safety», which introduces a series of measures aimed at combating cyberbullying
and the dissemination of extremist material.
It restricts teenagers’ access to harmful content and establishes an obligation
for internet service providers and school administrations to respond to online
harassment.
I repeat: at the time
of writing, I did not have the full texts of these documents; I assessed them
based on information about their content published in open sources.
Overall, this is a
sound legislative initiative, though in my opinion it is premature. Let me
explain why: while it is appropriate to regulate such matters through federal
laws, this should only be done when there is a clear understanding of exactly
how the law will be applied in practice. This is especially true when the law
regulates legal relationships that are entirely new to the state and have not
been subject to such regulation in the past. As the law is implemented,
numerous circumstances and situations will arise that are not covered by it, or
are covered but not fully, or where the new law conflicts with existing ones.
This is all the more true given that, under pressure from public outcry, this
law is currently being adopted on an expedited basis. There will be many legal
loopholes, and eliminating them will be difficult and time-consuming, because
the procedure for amending federal law is not a quick one, and many amendments
will be needed, especially in the first few years of implementation. Therefore,
such an «unpolished» law will initially create more difficulties and legal and
administrative barriers than it will eliminate.
The biggest mistake
the Philippine authorities could make would be to try, in response to public
pressure, to act immediately and simultaneously on all fronts, while expecting
quick results. Such a strategy can lead to only one outcome—complete failure.
They need to realistically assess their capabilities, and the reality is that
the Philippine authorities simply do not have the technical, administrative,
and—most importantly—human and financial resources to build a comprehensive
security system in educational institutions. This is a fairly lengthy process
that requires phased implementation.
The best solution would
be to focus efforts on the following areas, which are no less important but
more achievable at this time:
1. Analytics and
forecasting.
2. Containing and
reducing internal aggression.
3. Improving the
effectiveness of rapid response teams.
4. An administrative
and legal framework.
5. Creating
conditions for the development of human and professional resources.
Let’s examine these
areas in a bit more detail.
1. Analysis and
Forecasting:
1.1. Assessment of
the Overall Situation.
To begin with, it is
necessary to carefully examine all educational institutions in the country, as
well as other critically important and potentially hazardous facilities where
large numbers of children and adolescents gather. To this end, a unified
assessment system based on specific, formal criteria must be developed and
implemented. A ready-made format, such as the «Educational Institution Safety Scale», can be used, or a custom format
can be developed.
Next, experts sort
and conduct selective verification of the submitted information, breaking down
the data by regions, provinces, and individual municipalities. The final report
will take the form of an «Educational Institutions Safety Atlas», which will
provide an overview of the safety situation at educational and childcare
facilities across the country. However, this information should be accessible
only to relevant specialists. The final document, as well as the data collected
during its creation, must be classified as restricted access.
1.2. Individual
Security Assessment of Facilities.
After assessing the
overall situation nationwide, experts proceed to conduct an individual
assessment of each facility to identify and evaluate existing vulnerabilities,
develop specific recommendations for addressing the identified shortcomings,
and monitor the results. Furthermore, based on this data, a unique «Security
Protocol» must be developed for each facility. This should not be the kind of
generic, one-size-fits-all instructions currently in use, but rather a document
tailored specifically to each facility, taking into account its unique
characteristics and features; it must contain specific (individual) tasks for
each official in the event of an emergency. This document must have restricted
access; its contents must not be disclosed to anyone outside the list of
officials specified therein.
Who will carry
this out, and how should the process be organized?
According to Bill No.
2426, this task falls to the Department of Education in collaboration with the
police, who are responsible for conducting a comprehensive vulnerability audit
of every school. This immediately raises the question: Do these two agencies—in
every province and every municipality—have a sufficient number of practitioners
who know how to identify and assess such vulnerabilities? I can say with
certainty that they do not, because this is not their area of expertise at all.
This work must be carried out by experts with a completely different
professional background. Equally important is that they must be independent of
the National Police and the Department of Education; otherwise, their
assessments and conclusions will be biased and tailored to serve departmental
interests (following the principle of «maximum budget, minimum
accountability»).
A more effective
solution in every sense would be to establish a state (or quasi-state)
organization for threat assessment and prevention. For example, in the form of
a government agency with the following tasks:
- monitoring,
assessing, and analyzing existing and potential threats;
- developing
effective methods to counter these threats, reduce the likelihood of their
successful execution, and mitigate their probable consequences, particularly
human casualties;
- ongoing auditing
and evaluation of the effectiveness of security systems in existing and future
educational institutions (during the design of new facilities or major
renovations of existing ones), as well as in places where large numbers of children
gather;
- preparation of
comprehensive and well-founded assessments of identified vulnerabilities in
security systems, along with the development of specific recommendations for
addressing them;
- providing
additional training and professional consulting to employees of private
security services and law enforcement agencies regarding the security of
educational institutions and locations where large numbers of children gather;
- developing and
implementing unique «Security Protocols» for educational institutions and
locations where large numbers of children gather, based on the specific
characteristics of each facility;
- conducting
theoretical and practical sessions, training programs, and drills with teaching
and administrative staff at educational institutions and locations where large
numbers of children gather, on how to respond to various emergency situations;
- representing the
interests of the state, joining, initiating, and participating in the work of
international organizations and professional communities in the relevant field
of activity.
This is the primary
expert, analytical, and administrative body within the state’s executive branch
responsible for the safety of educational and other children’s institutions. It
develops and subsequently revises the national strategy on this issue, and
plans, implements, and monitors all stages of its implementation.
Further details on
exactly how such an agency should operate, an example of its organizational and
staffing structure, as well as the opportunities its creation and operation
could provide to the state, are outlined in the draft comprehensive system for ensuring the safety of
educational institutions, section «II. Technical Strength and Security of Facilities».
2.
Controlling and reducing internal aggression.
2.1. Identifying
potential threats and «high-risk groups».
Bill No. 2426
provides for an increase in the number of psychologists and their assistants to
work directly in schools with students, identifying depression, suicidal
tendencies, and bullying at early stages. The most important aspect of this
measure will be its proper implementation. It is important not to chase
statistical targets or rush implementation, as this could lead to very
unfortunate consequences. It often happens that demand exceeds supply in the
skilled labor market. In such cases, employers begin to lower their quality
requirements for a candidate’s qualifications and professional experience,
simply to fill the vacancy and report to upper management that the necessary
specialist has been hired and has begun their duties.
The focus should not
be on the number of staff positions filled or the speed at which they are
filled, but rather on the professional caliber of the specialists being hired.
After all, not every psychologist is suitable for this purpose; a university
degree alone is not enough. We need specialists with a narrow focus who have
undergone additional training under the guidance of experts with real practical
experience working with adolescents who have committed or planned to commit
particularly serious crimes, who were members of extremist communities and
terrorist organizations, who were “followers” of banned online criminal
communities such as «764», «NLM», «Red Dolphin», «Maniacs: Cult of Killers» and
the like, as well as supporters of the «Columbine» movement. They must acquire
professional skills not only in identifying «at-risk» adolescents but also in preventing
their emergence, working with them and their families, correcting their
behavior, strengthening their moral and psychological resilience, and freeing
them from the control of manipulators. This cannot be learned in a three-day
online seminar.
I don’t think there
are enough specialists of this caliber in the
2.2. Reducing the
activity and numbers of potential members of «high-risk groups».
As an effective
deterrent to reduce the number of potential victims, I would suggest that the
leadership of the Philippine Department of Education consider implementing an
approach such as CPTED.
CPTED stands for «Crime Prevention
Through Environmental Design» — an approach aimed at reducing crime by altering
the physical environment in which it occurs. The essence of the concept is that
a well-designed physical space can prevent crime, deter undesirable behavior,
and strengthen community ties.
The effectiveness of
this method in reducing violence in educational institutions has been confirmed
by many years of practical research conducted by Safe Havens International
(SHI)—one of the world’s oldest and most experienced expert and analytical
organizations specializing in improving safety in educational institutions.
For more details on CPTED implementation methods and the results achieved, see the articles by SHI Executive Director Michael Dorn, a recognized international expert in the field of school safety and security.
Although creating a
more supportive emotional and psychological environment does not solve all
safety issues and does not have a guaranteed effect on all at-risk adolescents,
research shows that the use of such methods can reduce levels of anxiety,
stress, and aggression among some adolescents by 10–15%, and thus reduce the
number of potential offenders and victims.
3.
Improving the effectiveness of rapid response teams.
An analysis of the
sequence of tragic events at Philippine schools this year revealed that rapid
response teams deployed to incidents at educational institutions acted, first,
slowly, and second, ineffectively. The perpetrators were able to carry out
their plans, and in one case, the suspect not only killed and wounded several
people but also managed to flee the scene. This is not a criticism of the
Philippine police; the reason lies elsewhere—in a lack of experience in
responding to such situations. To put this in perspective, the last mass
shooting at a Philippine school occurred 16 years ago, and consequently, the
police had been focused on other, more common types of crimes. I assume that
for this same reason, no one developed any specific protocols for responding to
such situations, and even if they existed, they remained purely theoretical.
Standard tactical
response protocols for incidents involving the use of weapons do not apply to
educational institutions. These are confined spaces with large numbers of
people—and not just people, but children—who, due to their age and limited life
experience, behave unpredictably in such situations. This applies to both the
victims and the perpetrators, who, as a rule, are also still children. The
logic that guides typical adult criminals with selfish or personal motives does
not apply to them.
Initially, efforts
should be focused on two main areas:
1. Response speed;
2. Response
effectiveness.
As for speed,
according to Bill No. 2426, the correct decision has already been made: all
schools must be equipped with several types of direct communication channels to
the police. I believe this refers to two main types: two-way communication (via
telephone or intercom) and one-way communication in the form of an emergency
alarm button to call the police. In addition, attention should be paid to
adjusting the patrol routes of outdoor police units so that, during school
hours, patrol density in the vicinity of schools and other educational
institutions is maximized. In areas where several educational facilities are
concentrated and in places where large numbers of children gather, it would be
prudent to establish a permanent police post.
To improve the
effectiveness of police responses, changes must be made to the initial training
program for patrol officers, and a continuing education program for current
officers must be developed and implemented. Schools—and indeed any other
educational institution—are tactically complex environments for the police;
therefore, specific skills are required to take proactive and effective action
to neutralize threats in such areas and buildings. This applies not only to
patrol officers themselves but also to dispatch center personnel, who manage
police forces and resources at the scene of an incident from the moment an emergency
call is received.
The best solution, as
in the case of psychologists, would be to establish a separate training center
in the country dedicated to developing and implementing effective police
tactics for neutralizing threats in educational institutions and places where
large numbers of children gather. This center would bring together the most
experienced specialists in this field, and experts from other countries could
be invited periodically (there are good training programs in the
In addition to
training, knowledge and skills must be reinforced through practice; members of
police patrol units should periodically participate in drills and training
exercises based on various scenarios at educational facilities. This will allow
them to maintain the necessary skills, as well as to better understand and
remember the specific features of the buildings and surrounding areas of
schools and other educational institutions along their patrol routes. Such
knowledge will enable them to orient themselves more easily and quickly at the
scene of an incident in the event of a real emergency.
4.
Administrative and Legal Framework.
Consider amending all
current legislation governing the activities of institutions and organizations
in early childhood, elementary, secondary (general and vocational), and higher
education to completely relieve the administration of educational institutions
of responsibility for organizing, ensuring, and maintaining public order and
safety on the premises of the educational institution.
This is a key
prerequisite from which the development of a security system must begin. The
leadership and staff of an educational institution should focus exclusively on
the educational process and on resolving related administrative and operational
matters. Security issues should be handled exclusively by specialized
professionals who possess the necessary expertise and resources.
A major problem for
security and a significant boon to crime is the struggle by educational
institutions to maintain their reputation and positive statistics. This compels
their leadership to use any means necessary to conceal committed offenses from
official record-keeping and full investigation until these incidents begin to
lead to serious consequences and it becomes impossible to conceal them any
longer. In addition, it is not uncommon for employees of educational
institutions to exploit their official positions to deliberately disregard
safety requirements or interfere with the activities of security services,
demanding that rules be disregarded in the interest of the educational process
or other aspects of the institution’s operations.
The only effective
way to address the situation is to strip the administrations of educational
institutions and education officials of any leverage over security matters.
Only this will allow us to lay a solid foundation upon which we can
subsequently build a transparent and effective system with clearly defined
responsibilities. Security will be provided by professionals, and educational
institutions will be able to focus on their primary mission—the education and
upbringing of the younger generation.
This raises the
question: to whom, then, should these functions be transferred? The answer
depends on the direction the authorities choose for the future development of
the security system for educational institutions and places where large numbers
of children gather.
If they opt for a
separate specialized agency, as described in the draft comprehensive security system for educational institutions, then these tasks
would be transferred to the Government Agency for Threat Prevention—which
plans, coordinates, and sets objectives—and to the Specialized Police Service,
which carries them out directly.
If everything remains
in its current format, these tasks will have to be assigned to the National
Police.
There is also the
option of transferring this responsibility to private contractors; a similar
system exists in some
5. Creating
conditions for the development of human and professional resources.
Whichever system the
Philippine authorities choose, they will need specialists—not «paper» ones, but
real ones—who possess not just «impressive» diplomas, but genuine knowledge and
skills. Establishing specialized training centers to educate professionals in
the fields of security and psychology, using curricula developed based on
domestic expertise and best international practices. Enabling professionals to
participate in international training and exchange programs. Membership in
international professional communities focused on school safety, or the
creation of such communities.
All of this will make
it possible, within a few years, to establish a solid scientific and practical
foundation upon which to build a comprehensive, multi-level security system
based on any of the possible models.
Conclusion.
As of today, the
It is important that
resources and efforts be directed appropriately and that these initiatives do
not devolve into populism. I will reiterate: there are no quick-fix solutions
here; it will take years of serious work and substantial financial investment.
However, the result will be an effective and reliable security system capable
of ensuring the robust protection of educational facilities against both
current and future threats.
The
Author: Roman Grishin
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