How School Violence Pushed Philippine Lawmakers to Crack Down on Children's Social Media Use

Both Chambers of the Philippine Congress Have Filed Bills Following Deadly School Incidents in the Southeast Asian Nation.

School shootings used to be rare in the Philippines. But a spate of incidents involving students this year appears to have prompted lawmakers in the Southeast Asian country to quickly pass bills to crack down on what they say is the cause of the deadly trend: social media.

On Monday, the Philippine House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban children under 13 from accessing social media, while those between 13 and 17 would have limited access, with 287 members voting in favor and only three against. The latest bill follows its Senate counterpart that passed last week but has a higher age threshold and bans people under 18 from social media platforms and services classified as "high risk."

Bills must first reconcile their differences before going to the president for his signature. But their adoption now follows moves by other countries such as Australia, Britain and others to impose age restrictions on social media amid concerns about the impact of the platforms on children's mental health and safety.

Philippine President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. It said it was "not at all surprising" that Congress acted amid concerns that social media has influenced children to engage in violent acts. However, Marcos said his administration would still examine whether such a ban could work in the Southeast Asian nation of more than 110 million people.

"That's also something we're studying really hard," Marcus told reporters in Singapore on Sunday. This has its advantages, he said, but he warned that it could "simply cause children to hide their use".

Age-specific social media bans have been debated in the Philippines since at least 2019, but intensified earlier this year following reports that a mass shooting plot by students was foiled in February, as well as shootings and stabbings elsewhere in the following months. Education Minister Juan Edgardo Angara said harmful online influences were a possible factor behind the incidents, saying in July that experts pointed to "young people's exposure to harmful social media sites, negative influences, hairdressers and terrorist groups that actively recruit (children) online."

However, the ban is an incremental approach in one of the countries where users spend the most time online. Critics have also questioned whether such bans are effective. Australia was the first country to ban social media for children, but a community-based study published in June 2026 found "limited enforcement, poor compliance and circumvention of social media restrictions" in the three months after the ban came into effect in December 2025.

The Philippine Senate's version of the social media bill passed almost unanimously, except for Senator Risa Hontiveros, an advocate for children's and women's rights. Huntiros, explaining his only dissenting vote, said he wanted "surface restrictions" for teenagers rather than a complete ban on under-18s. "Our law needs to reflect the realities of how social media has benefited young people as well," Huntiros said.

Hontiveros said that instead of keeping children off platforms, the goal should be to create a safe online environment. "Suddenly taking it away without providing adequate ways to deal with its absence is not an answer to their needs and not an answer to our collective fears," he said.

Sen. Robinhood Padilla, who sponsored the Senate version, told a local radio station that the upper chamber's measures were necessary not only to curb violence in schools but also the negative impact on young people in general. "This measure should be passed immediately because [social media] has created a lot of bad things for our youth, especially minors," Padilla said on Oct. 11, citing cases of bullying, suicides and school shootings. "All these problems have been exacerbated over time."

The Senate-passed bill raised the threshold of restrictions from the original proposal to cover those under 16 to those under 18. The approved bill proposes to disable or suspend the accounts of minors and prohibit them from creating new accounts. Platforms will be required to have effective age assurance measures in place. The Senate bill does not include email, private messaging apps that lack public or group features, school platforms, news websites, or online gaming platforms focused on gaming and not social networks.

Senate President Shervin Gatchalian claimed in June that "many young people are addicted to social media and violent games, and studies show that this affects their mental health." A clear causal relationship between violent video games and violence has not yet been established.

According to the proposal of the House of Representatives, this ban applies to children under 13 years old. Minors under the age of 18 may be on these platforms, but are prohibited from accessing "harmful or prohibited" content, advertising, live streaming, short video, behavioral profiling, purchases, and gambling-like mechanisms. Parents must consent to their children's use of social media and this consent can be withdrawn.

Before the bills were passed, several school-related incidents rocked the Philippines.

In March, Philippine police revealed that seven teenagers from the Calabarzon region of Luzon island were allegedly planning to attack the school in February. According to the police, these five boys and two girls shared pictures and videos of school shootings in other countries. They were handed over to social workers.

Then in June, two male students, ages 14 and 15, opened fire at their school in Tacloban City, killing three students. 20 other people were injured in this shooting incident. In turn, Philippine authorities temporarily banned GoreBox, a sandbox-style action game that simulates violence and destruction using weapons.

In August, a high school student from a university campus in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga shot a student at the school before killing himself. The shooter live-streamed the attack using his body camera.

Just a month later, a shooting at another high school in the southern Philippines killed two 14-year-old students and wounded eight others. The armed man, who was also a teenager from the school, shot himself. After investigating, police found posts the shooter had made in an online community idolizing young people involved in school shootings.

While gun violence is not uncommon in the country, these incidents have forced the Philippines to consider a problem it once thought was unique to the United States.

But the Mental Health Association of the Philippines argues that a complete ban on social media is a "non-solution". "Violence prevention requires a comprehensive approach that includes mental health advocacy, safe school environments, responsible online platforms, and early detection and intervention," PMHA National Executive Director Dr. Carolina Uno-Rayco said in a press release Thursday.

Activist group Akbayan Youth argued that the proposed ban on social media would punish those who depend on it for education and livelihood by disrupting it, and called for the regulation to be reversed. "Don't punish the youth," Khylla Meneses, the organization's national president, said in a statement. Hold accountable platforms that benefit from the way social media works."