FR Diaries | What I Learned About Violence and Grooming

The school shootings in Zamboanga and Leyte, sparked massive discourse on violence and gun safety. These incidents have rightly raised questions about firearm access, school security, bullying, mental health, and the influence of violent material online. But what happens before a young person decides that violence is an acceptable response?

I know something about that process because I went through it myself.

I was once a college student who was introduced to the underground movement of the Communist Party of the Philippines. I did not wake up one morning and decide that I wanted to become a member of the New People's Army. It happened gradually.

First came conversations. Then educational discussions. Then a steady stream of narratives about injustice, oppression and revolution. The people introducing me to the movement did not begin by asking me to take up a weapon. They built trust first. They shaped how I understood the world. Eventually, ideas that once seemed extreme began to appear reasonable. Violence, which I had once regarded as unacceptable, could be presented as necessary for a greater cause.

That is what makes grooming dangerous. The weapon is often not the beginning of the process. It is the end of one.

Terror grooming does not necessarily happen in a remote guerrilla camp. It can happen in places that appear ordinary – a classroom, a student organization, a community, or an online group. It can begin with a conversation and develop through repeated exposure, emotional manipulation, ideological conditioning and recruitment.

This is why I believe the proposed Terror Grooming and Radicalization Prevention Act deserves serious consideration.

The bill would require schools to establish measures to prevent terror grooming, monitor and report grooming-related activities, and provide intervention and reintegration support for victims. It also addresses online spaces used for indoctrination and recruitment and calls for digital literacy and strategies against online radicalization. Those measures matter because prevention works best before someone becomes committed to violence.

The recent incidents show why this deserves attention. In Zamboanga, the attack itself was livestreamed. In Tacloban, authorities later investigated additional online shooting threats against the same school.

This does not mean that either shooting was caused by terror grooming. But they demonstrate how violence and digital spaces can intersect, and why schools and families need better tools to recognize and respond to warning signs before threats become tragedies.

The proposed law is also clear that legitimate political, religious and ideological expression should not be criminalized. It requires intent to facilitate terrorism to be established, and it treats children who have been groomed as victims requiring rehabilitation and reintegration.

A young person who has been manipulated into embracing violence should not simply be abandoned until that violence is carried out. There should be a point where a teacher, counselor, parent, community leader or responsible institution can recognize what is happening and intervene.

I learned this lesson the hard way. I know how a young person's grievances can be cultivated, how trust can be turned into dependence, and how violence can gradually be made to look justified. I also know that by the time someone is carrying a weapon, prevention has already failed several times.

That is why the conversation about school violence should not begin and end with the gun.

We should ask what our children are being taught to believe about violence, who is influencing them, where that influence is happening, and whether the adults around them have the tools to intervene.