Authorities get hold of suspect linked to South Cotabato school shooting
The National Bureau of Investigation said that it has identified one of the suspects connected to the South Cotabato shooting that killed three students.
NBI Director Melvin Matibag shared an update regarding their investigation into the school shooting at Banga National High School during the Department of Justice budget hearing at the Senate on Sept. 24.
“We’re doing our best to monitor it. And incidentally, report ko lang po, yesterday we were able to get hold of one of the individuals somehow related to what happened in South Cotabato,” Matibag said.
Matibag also said that they have apprehended a suspected “groomer” in Cebu, though it was not clear if the person is related to the three school shooting incidents this year.
He asked the Senate to raise the NBI’s proposed P175 million confidential fund for 2027 to P1 billion to help combat cybercrime, including digital fraud and nihilistic violence targeting overseas Filipino workers and vulnerable youth. “
"More than the expenses on operations namin, we are intending to procure tools and equipment to fight cybercrime,” Matibag said.
He said seven out of 10 complaints they receive involve cybercrime.
“Meron talagang NVE group, and meron namang mga lurkers lang kinokopya ito, as simple as estudyante na hindi nakagawa ng homework magsasabi na may shooting na mangyayari. Those are the things that we want to monitor as a team within the family of DOJ, and of course ang NBI, we want to be very active on this one,” the NBI director said.
He added that in line with this, they are drafting a legislative framework called "age-gating."
"Depende po sa edad kung paano natin 'to papagamitin o gagamitin...Tapos coordination with the school, 'yung threat validation and the response na gagawin, which what we did kaya nakuha namin 'tong personality from South Cotabato because of the assistance of the schools involved dito sa ating ginagawa," Matibag said.
"We don't want our electoral process, judicial process, legislative process, at 'yung ginagawa ng ating gobyerno will be dictated by people who can manipulate dito sa cyberspace," he added.
Concerns over violent extremist content and the online exploitation of minors have grown following the Sept. 18 shooting at Banga National High School in South Cotabato, the third school shooting incident this year after similar incidents in Tacloban City in June and at Ateneo de Zamboanga University in August.
The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center and National Privacy Commission separately moved to strengthen monitoring of Meta, Reddit, Discord and Roblox amid concerns over minors’ exposure to violent content online and its links to offline incidents, including school shootings.
