Three dead. A classroom turned charnel house. In the Philippines, a student nursing a grudge over bullying has done what the feckless administrators of the British educational system have long feared: he turned a personal grievance into a national tragedy.
The UK’s prompt endorsement of tighter security protocols is, of course, predictable. We love our box-ticking, our risk assessments, our illusion of control. But as any student of history knows, you cannot legislate away the human heart’s capacity for vengeance.
From the schoolyards of Rome to the playing fields of Eton, bullying has always been a crucible of character or a catalyst for catastrophe. The question is not whether we can install more metal detectors or hire more counsellors. The question is whether we have the moral courage to teach our children that the grudge is a poison, not a weapon.
The Philippine dead are a mirror. We see in it our own anxieties, our own failures, our own refusal to confront the rot beneath the surface. Let us not waste this tragedy on another round of performative concern.
Let us instead ask ourselves: what are we doing to forge souls resilient enough to endure the slings and arrows of childhood without resorting to the gun?