By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
Sifting through the day’s news the other day, what triggered me more than the thought of higher gasoline prices amid the prolonged war in the Middle East was this: a warning that Filipino minors are being targeted for violent extremism.
Brig. Gen. Wilson Asueta, who heads the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group, has raised the alarm over this new and deeply unsettling battlefield where unwitting teenagers are exposed through their gadgets and digital games to the stalking of cold and dark forces out to condition their minds toward nihilism and violence.
This came to light as seven minors, whom I refer to here as the Maleficent 7, were recently pulled out of what authorities say was an online web of psychological grooming. Inside gaming platforms meant for play, conversations had taken a dark turn. Participants were allegedly encouraged to idolize mass shooters, to imagine violence, to rehearse it — and, chillingly, to end their own lives after carrying it out.
This is not random, but surgical trappings of a deadly and hateful ideology. Call it what it is: nihilism. The belief that life has no meaning, no value, no consequence. Strip a young mind of purpose, and what remains is a dangerous vacuum — one that can be filled with rage, spectacle, or worse, a desire to feel something through destruction.
We have seen the tragic results of this in many mass shootings and suicide bombings reported in the past. The desire to annihilate humanity begins with very suggestive ideas of self-harm.
In April 2024, Australian authorities arrested seven teenagers in Sydney — juveniles aged 15 to 17 — linked to a network of “religiously motivated violent extremist ideology.” The arrests followed a stabbing attack on a bishop during a livestreamed sermon. Police moved quickly, deploying 400 officers across multiple raids, warning that while no specific target had been identified, the risk of an attack was real and imminent.
That’s why I see the Maleficent 7 as a forewarning that the Philippines is not immune to such violence. The proof is just a different country, but with seven youths and the same pattern.
Why the Philippines? Well, we’re positioned at the fault line of the South China Sea tensions, wedged between the strategic interests of the United States and China, and so we are a vulnerable tipping point for geopolitical superpowers. Add to that a world increasingly fractured by religious conflict, including the widening ripple effects of tensions involving Iran and its adversaries in the Muslim-Arab world, and the risk multiplies. In Mindanao, where insurgency has long simmered, extremist narratives can find fertile ground if left unchecked.
Then, there’s also the indelible Duterte effect. Years of normalized violence — traced to the brutal excesses of the Duterte-era drug war — have, in subtle ways, dulled the nation’s moral reflexes. A kind of cultural fatigue has set in, where outrage is shorter-lived and ethical lines blur more easily.
In a blog post in the US, I read criticism of the Philippine leadership in 2019 and how distorted belief systems, which it coined as “Filipism,” can take root because brutality had been reframed as order. And so moral shortcuts like executing drug dealers and users on the street have become acceptable.
This is why the PNP’s call matters. And why it should unsettle parents enough for them to become vigilant “digital guardians.” It sounds simple, but it is actually not. Because the threat no longer knocks on the door — it logs in, joins the game, and starts a conversation. And sometimes, that is all it takes.
* * *
SHORT BURSTS. For comments or reactions, email firingline@ymail.com or tweet @Side_View via X app (formerly Twitter). Read current and past issues of this column at https://www.thephilbiznews.com