By Reisha Mae F. Valdez, UC student
A child should be afraid of crossing a busy street, not of what might be waiting behind a screen.
Yet for many Filipino children, danger no longer ends when they get home. It follows them into their bedrooms, sits beside them at the dinner table, and waits inside the phone they hold. One click can lead to a stranger. One message can become manipulation. One scroll can expose them to something they were never ready to see.
Social media was built to bring people closer. It did. But it also brought the wrong people closer to our children.
That is why I understand the demand for stronger protection. We cannot keep telling children to be careful while leaving them to navigate an online world where not everyone has good intentions.
But there is another reality we cannot ignore.
For many Filipinos, the same phone a child uses to scroll is the phone a parent uses to earn.
I see it in my own life as a student. School announcements, opportunities, communication, and even work have found their way into our screens. Around me are people selling food, clothes, crafts, and other products through Facebook, Messenger, and TikTok. Some do not have a physical store or money for advertisements. They have a phone, a product, and the hope that someone will notice.
For them, social media is not a playground. It is a livelihood.
That is why the idea of simply banning or severely restricting social media troubles me. We may be protecting children from one danger while creating another problem for families who depend on these platforms to survive.
The parent waiting for a customer to reply did not create harmful content. The small seller posting a product did not exploit a child. The ordinary Filipino answering messages is not the person we should be chasing.
Why should their livelihood disappear because someone else chose to use the internet to hurt people?
Still, protecting children cannot be treated lightly. We have seen enough cases of bullying, exploitation, dangerous trends, and young people influenced by strangers they may never meet. Children do not always recognize when a conversation becomes dangerous. Sometimes, by the time they realize it, the damage is already done.
This is where the government must step in, not with the easiest solution, but with the right one.
Hold platforms responsible for the spaces they create. Give parents better tools to protect their children. Teach students how to recognize manipulation and danger. Most importantly, go after those who exploit children instead of treating every Filipino user as part of the problem.
A ban may close one door to danger, but it can also close a door to opportunity. For a family struggling to make ends meet, that door may be the only one they have.
We cannot build a safer future for Filipino children by making the present harder for their parents. The internet now carries our schoolwork, conversations, businesses, opportunities, and, for many families, part of their daily income.
So perhaps the question is not whether we choose children or livelihood. Perhaps the real problem is believing that we have to choose.
A child deserves a safer internet. A parent deserves a way to earn. A government that claims to protect its people should be capable of protecting both.
We should not have to choose between a child’s safety and a family’s survival. We should build a digital world where neither has to be sacrificed.***
