As the country observes School Safety Month this July, Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano renewed his call for safer schools and stronger values formation following a series of violent incidents involving students that renewed concerns over campus safety.
The call comes after a string of violent incidents involving students that have raised fresh concerns over school safety. Among the most recent were the stabbing of two Grade 11 students inside Cabaluay National High School in Zamboanga City and the recovery of a loaded .38-caliber revolver with six live rounds from a Grade 10 student inside a school in Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo.
The incidents followed the deadly school shooting in Tacloban City and separate stabbing cases involving students in Cavite and Negros Occidental.
Established under Proclamation No. 115-A, s. 1966, School Safety Month aims to promote safe, secure, and resilient learning environments through greater awareness, preparedness, and shared responsibility among schools, families, communities, and government.
“While improving campus security is necessary, preventing violence begins long before students enter the classroom.”
While improving campus security is necessary, Cayetano said preventing violence begins long before students enter the classroom.
“We cannot allow violence at the home, in church, in school. Noong araw, iyan ang safe space. Pero ngayon, sa ibang parte ng mundo, marami na sa school, [violence ang] nangyayari,” the veteran legislator said.
The seasoned lawmaker has long advocated for strengthening values education as part of efforts to prevent violence among the youth.
On July 3, 2025, he filed Senate Bill No. 101, or the proposed Filipino Identity in Values Act, which seeks to institutionalize a national program on values, etiquette, and moral uprightness through schools, families, communities, faith-based organizations, and government.
The proposal builds on the senator’s earlier initiative as Speaker of the House during the 18th Congress, when he authored House Bill No. 1, which later became Republic Act No. 11476, or the GMRC and Values Education Act, restoring Good Manners and Right Conduct and Values Education as core subjects in the K to 12 curriculum.
“Schools, homes, and places of worship must remain the safest spaces for children.”
He emphasized that schools, homes, and places of worship must remain the safest spaces for children, adding that protecting young Filipinos requires the shared commitment of parents, educators, communities, and government.
“The reason that we’re more sensitive when it is schools, churches, or home is because this is the place where children should be safe,” Cayetano said.
“Hindi tayo pwedeng ma-desensitize dyan. Hindi pwedeng maging normal iyan,” he concluded.
