Anti-grooming bill heads to Marcos for approval after Congress ratification

The Philippines has completed congressional ratification of the Batang Ligtas bill, formally known as the Law Against Internet Grooming and Technology-Facilitated Abuse and Sexual Exploitation, with the measure now awaiting presidential signature. The Senate ratified the bicameral conference committee report on 30 September 2026, completing action on legislation that will expand child protection laws to cover online recruitment, grooming, the inducement of minors to commit violent acts, and abuses involving artificial intelligence. Under the bill, technology platforms and financial technology companies must establish age verification mechanisms, incorporate child safety protections into their services, and designate Philippine-based legal representatives, with the measure listed as an administration priority under the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council agenda.

Age-verification mandates place the compliance burden on every user, including adults required to prove their age, and may displace offenders to unmonitored channels rather than addressing the underlying contact and coercion dynamics. Detection systems that identify grooming behaviours at the message level offer a targeted alternative. Guardii operates across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms used by young people in the Philippines and globally, surfacing sustained targeting, escalation and coercion patterns through dedicated anti-grooming and anti-sextortion filters that report the threat rather than the content of a conversation. The approach blocks or flags hostile inbound contact before it reaches the minor, surfaces a child under active approach to a parent, school or protective service, and enables emergency escalation to the correct authority when an imminent threat is detected, intervening on behaviour rather than restricting access.