Senator Marcoleta warns against blaming video games for Tacloban school shooting

Senator Rodante Marcoleta has cautioned against prematurely linking video games to the fatal school shooting in Tacloban City, saying lawmakers should first establish the facts before drawing conclusions on what caused the incident.

Speaking on his program, Marcoleta said some senators had been too quick to attribute the June 22 shooting to video games without first conducting a comprehensive assessment of the circumstances.

“Some of my colleagues in the Senate, they’re quick to make a decision, quick to conclude that video games were to blame,” Marcoleta said.

“Dahil kapag hindi ka naman talaga nag-analisa at hindi mo naman binigyan ng matinding pag-aaral kung paano nangyari ito, bigla ka na lang magtuturo na parang akala mo, ito ang may kasalanan, eh mapapahamak lahat, ang maaaring natukoy mo na, naging dahilan ng ganoong klaseng pamamaril di ba?” the senator added.

Marcoleta did not mention any colleague by name, but his remarks came after Senator Risa Hontiveros sought a Senate inquiry into the shooting and invited GoreBox developer Felix Filip to answer questions about the game's age restrictions, content moderation, and whether minors could be exposed to harmful online communities through the platform.

Filip declined the invitation to appear before the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality on July 1, saying he was already cooperating with Philippine authorities investigating the incident. In an email to the committee, he also emphasized that GoreBox is intended only for adults.

“For the committee’s record, GoreBox is classified 18+ and is not intended for, or directed at, minors.”

Marcoleta also took issue with Hontiveros' earlier statement that foreign-based game developers and online platforms profiting from Filipino users should respect Philippine laws and institutions.

Without naming Hontiveros, he pointed out that GoreBox is a Germany-developed game distributed globally through Google Play and Steam and already carries an 18-and-over age classification.

The senator added that he had seen public comments suggesting authorities were "barking at the wrong tree" by placing the blame on the game itself.

Rather than focusing solely on the developer, Marcoleta said agencies such as the Department of Information and Communications Technology and the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center should determine whether existing regulations and safeguards were sufficient to prevent minors from accessing age-restricted content.

GoreBox remains inaccessible in the Philippines after the CICC imposed a temporary block on the game earlier this week.

For her part, Hontiveros maintained that the Senate inquiry is not intended to pin the tragedy on a single game but to determine whether online environments may have contributed to children's exposure to violent content.

“We’re not saying that a single video game caused this tragedy. But if there was an online environment that may have contributed to children’s exposure to violence, it is our duty to investigate it,” Hontiveros said.