There is an old Chinese proverb that says "To stop a pot from boiling over, it is better to take away the firewood from underneath than to keep pouring in cold water." It is a simple truth that gets lost the moment a government mistakes visible action for actual solution.
We saw this loss of perspective vividly these past few weeks. The Department of Education (DepEd) was forced to abruptly postpone its highly anticipated, nationwide active shooter drill originally set for August 25. While officials blamed inclement weather, the delay followed a wave of fierce resistance from the Philippine Psychiatric Association and pediatric experts who warned that "hyper-realistic" tactical simulations risk inflicting deep psychological trauma on students. DepEd has since hit the brakes, scrambling to reformat the drills for September to exclude graphic theatrics. But while a temporary pause to protect children's mental health is welcome, it exposes a fundamental flaw: the government has a frantic playbook for when a gun enters a classroom, but still lacks a plan to keep the gun out of a student's hands in the first place.
The underlying crisis remains unchanged since June 22, when two minors carried out a fatal shooting at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City, killing three classmates and injuring 13 others. The active shooter drill that followed, first piloted at Manila Science High School on July 15, is new to Philippine schools, borrowed loosely from the American playbook of "Run, Hide, Fight." To my mind, the intent is theoretically sound: to prepare students and teachers for the unthinkable, the same way fire drills prepare them for a blaze. In practice, however, I'd argue that these drills present two flawed options. Ones that DepEd is now actively struggling to reconcile.
Announce them ahead of time, and the exercise becomes no more than mere theater. Students know it is fake, and they'll treat it with the same seriousness as a fire drill everyone has done a hundred times, undermining the very readiness the exercise is meant to build. Keep them unannounced, on the other hand, and the Philippine Psychiatric Association’s worst fears are realized. Particularly for minors, who cannot immediately distinguish a drill from an actual attack, especially in a country without a robust school-based mental health support system to catch anyone who breaks down afterward. Education Secretary Sonny Angara has himself admitted the department is still only "working on" the mental health side of the equation, months after initial iterations of the drill were rolled out. The safety net was supposed to arrive with the drill. Instead it is arriving after, if it arrives at all.
Both versions of the drill share the same flaw. They train a young population to survive an armed intruder without giving them the actual means to do so. And worse, they do it while also failing to ask the more uncomfortable question of why that intruder had such easy access to firearms in the first place. This is where Republic Act 10591, the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act, comes into the conversation. The law mandates psychiatric evaluation, neuro exams, drug tests, and safe storage compliance before a license is renewed. What it does not have is consistent, funded enforcement.
Benchmark figures from the Philippine National Police's own Civil Security Group for instance, revealed that as recently as 2023, 8,313 firearms with expired licenses belonged to elected officials alone; more than a quarter of all guns registered to public officeholders in the country. If the men and women who write and enforce the gun laws cannot be bothered to renew their own licenses, the safe storage inspection meant for an ordinary household gun cabinet becomes absurdly hypocritical. A firearm registered to a parent, an uncle, or a family security guard remains one of the more common paths by which a weapon ends up in the hands of a minor. If a country takes school violence seriously, it would not just drill the potential victims. Instead it would tighten the leash on the roots.
Critics would argue, reasonably, why not both? Run the drills and fix the law. Prevention and cure are not mutually exclusive, so why treat this as a choice at all? It is a fair instinct, and if this were a matter of infinite budgets and infinite political will, I would take it. But alas, we are in the Philippines.
Consider the sheer distortion of our national priorities. The DepEd itself is asking Congress for roughly eight billion pesos to fund school security guards, CCTVs, and metal detectors. It's ironic that we are entirely willing to spend billions of pesos to make our schools look like heavily fortified checkpoints, all while turning a blind eye to the reality that most of these “fortresses” suffer from broken jalousie windows and doors that could barely lock. We will happily fund the illusion of a guarded perimeter, yet we expend absolutely zero political capital demanding that the Philippine National Police enforce the firearm audits and safe-storage inspections already mandated by law. Every press release announcing a new initiative is a press release that lets an administration look like it is doing something, without ever having to spend political capital fighting the very root of the problem.
From where I stand, there is also a quieter dishonesty in the both-and argument. It assumes the two measures are being pursued with equal urgency, when in truth one has already been implemented nationwide in a matter of weeks, while the other has been sitting dormant since 2013. Calling for both, in this context, is often a polite way of calling for neither, since it lets policymakers point to the drill as proof of action while the law gathers dust in an unaudited file cabinet somewhere in Camp Crame.
Now, I go back to the proverb, because at the very least, it does not ask us to choose between water and firewood forever. It asks us to notice which one actually stops the boiling. Drills are water; useful only for the moment the pot threatens to spill over, and gone the instant the fire underneath keeps burning. A nation that wants its children safe, needs the discipline to reach under the pot and pull the firewood out, before the next spark, in the next classroom, ever gets the chance to catch.
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