They doing tricks on it now. The Philippine government is out here trying to ban a whole mobile game called Gorebox because they don't want to talk about how a literal policewoman let her 14-year-old nephew swipe her service weapon. After a wild and tragic shooting left three students dead and 20 wounded at San Jose National High School in Tacloban, the state went straight to the classic playbook: blame the video games so nobody looks too close at the people holding the badges.

Let’s keep it 100. The Cybercrime Investigation and Co-ordinating Centre (CICC) and their undersecretary, Aboy Paraiso, rushed to block Gorebox, acting like a phone app is the reason these kids went cold. The game, made by some German company called F2Games, is rated R18 and lets you do "unrestrained destruction" with guns and explosives. But real talk—the scientific studies already prove there ain't no direct link between violent video games and actual real-life violence. The government is just looking for an easy out.

The real mess is how these young boys got their hands on real-life iron. The 14-year-old suspect didn't build a 9mm pistol out of pixels; he took it straight from his auntie, who is an active cop. She’s suspended now, but that’s a day late and a dollar short. Meanwhile, the 15-year-old suspect got his .38 revolver from his grandpa's security agency. When the people who are supposed to be professional security are leaving straps around for kids to grab, the neighborhood never stood a chance.

Instead of holding the adults fully accountable, the police are trying to frame this as an online rot problem. PNP spokesman Allan Rae Co said the 14-year-old was "heavily influenced" by online content and posted violent stuff. And get this: because of the law, the 14-year-old is too young to even face charges. So the kid who used the cop's gun walks away from the courtroom, while the 15-year-old gets hit with murder charges.

The background on these boys shows they were dealing with real-world pressure, not virtual reality. Both of them told investigators they were getting bullied heavy at school. Before the shooting, they holed themselves up in the bathroom to get their minds right and plan the attack. An anonymous homie of the 15-year-old said the kid was always uptight, wouldn't let nobody disrespect him, and dressed in army clothes because his grandfather was big on discipline. He wasn't playing a game; he was living in a pressure cooker.

Now you got politician Chel Diokno calling for stiffer penalties for people who let kids get hold of guns. That's the only sensible noise coming out of Manila, but it's getting drowned out by the government crying about mobile apps. Mass shootings are rare out here, even if gun play isn't new. Everybody remembers the 2009 Maguindanao massacre where a mayor lined up and killed 58 people. But a school shooting with kids? That’s different, and it's got the state panicking.

Banning Gorebox is just a smoke screen. The youth are dealing with real-life bullying, lack of mental support, and easy access to unsecured weapons inside their own homes. Trying to delete an app off the Google Play store isn't going to fix the streets or save the kids when the system itself is letting the straps slip into the wrong hands.

Sources: * Cybercrime Investigation and Co-ordinating Centre (CICC), Republic of the Philippines * Philippine National Police (PNP) * House of Representatives, Congress of the Philippines * International Age Rating Coalition (IARC)