A clinical psychologist said on Thursday that the two minor suspects in the Tacloban high school shooting were influenced by various factors, including their home environment, peer pressure, and social media content, among other things.
Speaking to DZRH on the program Balansyado, Dra. Camille Garcia pointed out that targets of bullying, when resorting to violence, typically go after the people who abused them. In the case of the shooting that occurred at San Jose National High School, the two minors shot at random.
She described the suspects’ trigger as “compounding experiences” from many different aspects in their lives.
“Maaaring kung ano mang nangyari doon sa dalawang gumawa nito, compounding ‘yung mga experiences nila. Meaning to say, hindi lang ‘to tungkol sa kanilang personalidad, pu-puwedeng naapektuhan sila ng kung ano man ‘yung problema sa pamilya, kung ano ‘yung nakikita nila sa community nila, kung saka-sakaling may impluwensya ng socmed. At tsaka siyempre kung ano man ‘yung peer pressure na talagang nakita or naranasan nitong mga batang ito,” she said.
However, Garcia said that, as the suspects are yet to undergo psychological evaluation, a clearer look into their motivations may indicate otherwise.
She also questioned whether the children had truly discerned the consequences of such violence and, if they had, in the absence of or despite external influences, actually wanted to commit the crime.
“Is there really a discernment doon sa ginawa nila? Talagang may nag-impluwensya ba sa kanila, o talagang kagustuhan nila itong ginagawa nila?” Garcia said.
Tech Support Professional and Cybersecurity Analyst Art Samaniego Jr., in a previous interview on the same program, expressed a similar idea.
He believes that playing video games, regardless of the degree of violence permitted or shown, do not solely affect a child’s actual behavior. The shooting incident was a result of a combination of factors not limited to their mental health state, social well-being, and their environment at home.
Fourteen-year-old alias “Nash,” the younger of the two shooting suspects, is said to have been a keen player of GoreBox. According to its Google Play description, it allows its players to “engage in brutal combat” and “witness the raw effects of realistic rag-doll physics and an intense gore system.”
