A student in the southern Philippines livestreamed himself shooting and killing another pupil in a classroom before taking his own life, the second school attack in the country in less than two months. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
The shooting took place at a school attached to Ateneo de Zamboanga University in the southern city of Zamboanga, a Catholic private institution in western Mindanao. Zamboanga city’s mayor, Khymer Adan Olaso, told the DZMM radio station that the shooter “managed to enter carrying a high-powered firearm and a .45-calibre pistol”.
The interior secretary, Victor Remulla, confirmed the ninth-grade suspect had livestreamed the attack on social media. The shooter’s Facebook account has since been disabled.
In the video, which was circulated by local media, the barrel of a gun is seen moving down a hallway before it is pointed into a classroom and fired. Children in school uniforms are seen screaming and rushing for an exit.
National police are now trying to “establish the motive behind the shooting, determine the ownership and source of the firearm used, and find out how it was brought inside the school campus”, the interior ministry said.
Hours later, the Philippines’ customs department said it had ordered the “preventive suspension” of an agent who owned the guns “allegedly used by the student involved”.
The customs deputy chief of staff, Noel Bendijo, told AFP that customs staff had acted on intelligence from their own officers in Zamboanga.
“The information is that he was the father of [the alleged shooter] … As for the actual firearms used and how the kid was able to access them, all of those are still under investigation,” he said. “We’ve also spoken with the party involved. He understands but of course he’s also grieving because he also lost his child. That’s a nightmare for any parent.”
Police when asked about the customs report said only that they were still investigating.
The Philippine president, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, said in an online post: “We grieve with the families and the entire [school] community over a tragedy that should never have happened. I have directed our law enforcement agencies to conduct a thorough investigation into this incident and to determine what more must be done to prevent another family, another school and another community from suffering the same grief.”
In June at a public high school in Tacloban City, three students were killed and about 20 injured after two students opened fire on campus.
In response, the government banned an online game, Gorebox, after it was discovered that at least one of the alleged shooters regularly played it, and reopened a senate inquiry on child safety in digital spaces.
The department of education told a separate senate committee last month that more support was needed to prevent a “copycat phenomenon”, as more incidents of violence followed the shooting, including bomb threats, stabbing and the recovery of firearms and ammunition, local media reported.
South-east Asia is grappling with violence among secondary school students, with a 14-year-old boy in Thailand allegedly shooting his grandparents and then killing more people at his school earlier this month before turning the gun on himself. Nine people died, including the shooter, teachers and a 12-year-old girl, and more than 30 were wounded.