DOJ pushes for anti-nihilistic extremism law amid child-involved incidents

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Justice (DOJ) is urging lawmakers to pass a law that would combat what it called “nihilistic violent extremism or NVE,” after a series of crime incidents involving children, such as the recent school shootings in Tacloban City that killed three people and injured around 20 others. This came after the justice department earlier said it is exploring the possibility that the shooting incident in Tacloban may stem from a pattern of NVE and not only a simple case of school bullying. In a press conference on Thursday, DOJ Undersecretary Nicholas Felix Ty explained that NVE involves exploiting children or young adults to commit different crimes. “Sometimes it starts with minor crimes like breaking and entering… Sometimes it’s self-mutilation. Sometimes it’s hurting animals or pets until it reaches the point where we have a mass casualty event,” Ty said in Filipino. He pointed out that perpetrators sometimes use the internet to exploit the vulnerabilities of youths to commit “bad things.” “They exploit their vulnerabilities and their need to have friends. And when they’re at that point, they exploit their need to maintain those friendships to get them to do all sorts of bad things,” he explained in Filipino. With this, the DOJ official pointed out that crafting a law against NVE is necessary and will be comprehensive, just like the laws of crimes against terrorism and human trafficking in the country. Ty noted that should the lawmakers pass a law against NVE, the DOJ is willing to help them, emphasizing that countering it should be a “whole-of-government approach.” Meanwhile, Ty said that while there is still no law yet against NVE, the DOJ would recommend to the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) the use of counter-terrorism mechanisms, which could allow authorities to gather intelligence to monitor certain activities. He said counter-terrorism is also being used by other countries in addressing NVE. “The counter-terrorism mechanism in the ATC is usually inter-agency. It’s not just law enforcement; it’s not just military. The DSWD [Department of Social Welfare and Development] and the DepEd (Department of Education) are also there. So most of the relevant agencies for the NVE are already in place,” Ty said mostly in Filipino. A total of 1,275 school-related cases involving children in conflict with the law were recorded from 2022 to 2025, as per the recent report of the Philippine National Police-Women and Children Protection Center.