PNP’s anti-cybercrime unit strengthens advocacy on safer schools
By Renelle L. Escuadro
BUTUAN CITY (PIA) — Police Colonel Lemuel B. Gonda, chief of the Caraga Regional Anti-Cybercrime Unit of the Philippine National Police, emphasized the need to raise public awareness and deepen the understanding of communities on nihilistic violent extremism (NVE) linked to recent school shootings in the country, during the Kapihan sa PIA on Sept. 24 in Butuan City.
What is NVE
NVE, according to Gonda, is a destructive and radical ideology that teaches life is meaningless and without purpose. “This belief, unfortunately, motivated individuals – children and adults – and groups to use violence to bring fear to people and do harm to society.”
“This is very alarming because the reported campus violence in the country is linked to NVE,” he said.
Gonda disclosed that operating under the doctrine of NVE, the members of these groups, also known as groomers, operate online, and they commonly use gaming platforms on the internet to look for victims. “These gaming platforms are not bad. However, groomers use these sites to look for victims.”
“Since online games now have interaction, the groomer will look for individuals who are lonely, depressed, and those who are unsupervised by parents or guardians, and they would build friendly relationships with the victims,” Gonda added.
Once the groomers gain the trust of the victims, they would invite them to join their chat groups and community on the dark web, a category on the internet where the online community is hard to regulate because it remains anonymous and has tight restrictions.
Once inside the online community, the groomers would instruct the victim to perform violent things to society, such as school shootings.
School safety is a shared responsibility
Gonda called for a whole-of-society approach in protecting the learners from NVE. He stated that the family has a pivotal role in protecting their children and the youth from NVE influence.
“Parents and guardians are encouraged to give substantial time to their children,” he told PIA. “If there is quality time within the family, children will not look for attention from others. We protect them from becoming prey to these groomers.”
“Let us supervise the online activities of our children and use parental controls,” he said. “We need to be mindful and vigilant if there are changes in the behavior of our children and seek help.”
He encouraged everyone, especially the parents, family members, and teachers, that any suspicious activities can be reported to the barangay assistance desk, to the nearest police station, and to RACU for urgent attention.
Gonda shared the ongoing efforts of RACU to intensify information drive against NVE such as cascading this emerging threat to the different peace and order councils in the Caraga region so local government units, government agencies and the different sectors of society can unite and come up with preventive and effective measures to protect the digital space.
“Thank you also to PIA Caraga for this partnership. The Kapihan sa PIA serves as an avenue where we can strengthen the advocacy campaign on safer schools and stronger communities,” the police official added. (RLE, PIA Dinagat Islands)
