One of the reasons Breaking Bad became a cultural phenomenon is that it asks a question that grows more keen the longer the story goes on:

At what point should we have stopped defending Walter White?

The answer seems obvious in hindsight. Certainly before the murders. Certainly before the lies. Certainly before the destruction he left behind. Yet millions of viewers continued to root for him because they had grown attached to the person behind the violence. The deeper Walter descended into darkness, the more people searched for reasons to excuse him.

That is the danger of admiration. It does not change what a person does. It changes what we are willing to excuse.

Following the Tacloban school shooting, many Filipinos renewed calls to lower the age of criminal responsibility. The argument was straightforward: a sixteen-year-old is old enough to understand violence and should therefore be held accountable for it. Whether one agrees with that position or not, it reveals a broader belief that age alone cannot erase responsibility when lives are destroyed.

Back in 2017, Rodrigo Duterte made headlines after claiming that he had killed a man in a knife fight at the age of sixteen. His spokesperson would later say that the President may have been joking. Whether the story was true, exaggerated, or entirely fabricated is almost beside the point.

What mattered was the reaction.

Instead of widespread alarm, many supporters treated the statement as another addition to the Duterte legend. Rather than asking why a head of state would casually recount a teenage killing, people laughed, applauded, and folded the story into an image of toughness that had already become central to his political appeal.

Back in 2017, a president claimed he had killed a man at sixteen and many people called it toughness. Today, a sixteen-year-old commits violence and we call it evil. The question is not whether young people understand violence. The question is why our moral standards change when the violent teenager grows up to become someone powerful.

That contradiction deserves more attention than it receives.

What makes this contradiction even more troubling is how the story eventually unfolds. The teenager who allegedly spoke about killing someone at sixteen eventually became president. Under his administration, violence ceased to be a personal anecdote and became the language of governance. Thousands died in a drug war whose victims never received the due process that many now passionately invoke when discussing powerful political figures.

The victims of the drug war were never granted lengthy public discussions about context. They were never afforded the benefit of doubt now demanded for those in power. Many never stood before a court. Many never heard a verdict. Many never got the opportunity to defend themselves before death arrived first.

Yet, when accountability begins climbing the ladder of power, the conversation suddenly changes. We are told to consider intentions, achievements, age, health, and legacy.

That is why the debate surrounding youth violence feels incomplete. We spend so much time asking whether young people are capable of understanding violence that we rarely ask why violence continues to be rewarded in public life. We condemn it when it comes from ordinary citizens, yet romanticize it when it comes wrapped in authority, popularity, and political power.

That is the lesson of Breaking Bad.

Walter White did not become Heisenberg overnight. By the end of the story, the most disturbing revelation was not what Walter had become. It was how long people continued making excuses for him.

Perhaps that is the real question Filipinos should ask themselves today. Not whether a sixteen-year-old is capable of violence.

Tacloban has already answered that.

The real question is why we are so quick to recognize violence when it comes from ordinary people, yet struggle to recognize it when it comes from men we admire.

Because the most dangerous thing about Heisenberg was never the violence.

It was the number of people who convinced themselves it was justified.

The Frontman