28/08/2026
COLUMN | WHO BEARS THE WEIGHT OF THE TRIGGER?
โAnd whoโs at fault for that?โ
A question that raced ahead of all others, hurled before the dust could settle. One that sharpens knives, turns grief into ammunition, and demands a name before the facts have even found their footing. On August 18, 2026, at Ateneo de Zamboanga University, a Grade 9 student brought two 9mm pistols onto campus and shot a Grade 10 student inside the high school building before the shooter also died. Authorities have yet to establish a motive, while investigators continue tracing how the fi****ms crossed the gates meant to keep them out.
The tragedy did not end with the last gunshot. Twenty-one students were treated for panic, anxiety, and minor abrasions; two were rushed to the hospital. And as another school was left mourning, the nation fell back into its familiar reflexโthe search for a name to carry the blame before the questions had even been answered: Who do we blame now?
The answer came too fast. Palace press officer Claire Castro shifted public attention towards educators. After the shooting, she pointed at teachersโsome were โbad examples,โ she said, modeling disrespect for students nationwide. Her words hijacked a conversation that should have been about how the shooting happened. Teachersโ unions erupted. ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio demanded a retraction. Teachersโ Dignity Coalition chair Benjo Basas rejected the idea that teachers alone could explain this horror.
Castro dug in. Of course teachers shape character, she insisted. But the timing was grotesque: while investigators scrambled to trace how two guns walked onto campus, the public had already raised its gavel. A verdict being written before the evidence had finished speaking. Teachers were placed in the dock while the harder questions remained outside it.
To point fingers, throw mud, and judge. Perhaps that is the easier investigation.
Yet the harder investigation grinds on. Authorities are still tracking the fi****msโ pathโwho owned them, who safeguarded them, and what warnings, if any, went unheard. The motive? Unknown. Mental health? Online influence? A possible copycat effect? These are not answers to be pinned onto the tragedy simply because the silence is uncomfortable. They are questionsโleads to be tested, evidence to be weighed, and trails to be followed. And those questions matter precisely because there is no single explanation waiting to make this tragedy convenient.
Cardinal Jose Advincula likewise called for a deeper understanding of the tragedy and the struggles faced by young people, emphasizing the need to look beyond the immediate act and toward the conditions surrounding it.
And perhaps that is where the distance between Zamboanga and our own classrooms becomes meaningless. Kilometers may separate our campuses, but they do not put the risk any farther away. Risks, more often, strikes more devastatingly so when they seeped through the cracks of our defenses.
Draping schools in checkpoints, drills, and protocolsโ yet understanding that armor is only as strong as the system holding it together, is a fact we have yet to settle. Every morning, we pass through those gates trusting the shield will holdโnot because it is unbreakable, but because we rarely imagine it failing. Perhaps that is exactly why vigilance must be unrelenting, and responsibility unrestrained.
That burden does not belong to one group. Students, parents, teachers, administrators, security personnel, firearm owners, and government agencies each hold a link in the chain of safety. One oversight can weaken the next link; one ignored warning can widen the gap. Vigilance is not merely the guardโs job. It belongs to the parent who reports a threat, the teacher who notices a student struggling, the student who refuses to dismiss a warning, and the administrator who ensures protocols exist beyond paper. A chain is only as strong as the links that refuse to break.
And this is where accountability must enterโnot with the easiest name to throw into the fire, but with the questions harder to answer. How did the firearm reach the campus? Where did the safeguards fail? Were there warnings that went unheard? What changes before another student becomes the reason we ask these questions again?
Because accountability is not simply pointing to whoever can be made responsible; it is tracing the chain until every failure is confronted and the truth has nowhere left to hide. If the investigation finds negligence, then let negligence be named. If it finds failures in security, firearm safekeeping, policy, or intervention, then let those failures be confronted. But let the evidence decide where the finger lands.
So when we ask again, โAnd whoโs at fault for that?โ perhaps the answer should not be the first finger we raise, but the questions we are willing to follow.
A trail pursued, for questions unanswered.
A finger raised for lives lost.
Column Article by: Mayenne Villamartin
Art by: Jahziel Rich Cabello
Layout by: Kate Kapangyarihan
