Three students were killed in a school shooting in the southern Philippines on Friday, including the 16-year-old suspected gunman who fatally shot himself, officials said.
The victims were all students aged 14 to 17 at a school in Banga town, South Cotabato province, according to Mayor Albert Palencia. Eight other students were wounded in the attack, with four remaining in critical condition.
The suspected shooter had reportedly warned classmates about his plans beforehand. “The suspect supposedly sat beside his friends and told them to go home ‘because after lunch, I will be executing my plan’,” Palencia said. “His friends laughed because the shooter was a known joker.”
The mayor continued, “After lunch, he started shooting students. He hit 10 students before killing himself.”
South Cotabato governor Reynaldo Tamayo addressed the broader issue of firearm access in the wake of the tragedy. “We need to be responsible in storing firearms,” he said by phone. “Gun owners, in particular, must make sure that minors do not have access to them.”
Tamayo emphasized that school security alone cannot prevent such incidents. “We cannot expect a handful of security personnel to monitor thousands of students,” he said. “We need to work together because otherwise this will be very difficult for us to address.”
The Philippines maintains relatively strict gun ownership regulations, including mandatory background checks and psychological evaluations for prospective owners. However, illegal firearms continue to circulate throughout the country.
Friday’s shooting marks the third fatal gun incident at a Philippine school since June, shattering what had previously been a rare category of violence in the nation. Last month, a student in Zamboanga live-streamed himself shooting and killing another student in a classroom before taking his own life. In June, at least three students were killed and about 20 others wounded when two classmates opened fire at a public high school in Tacloban.
The Banga town attack also comes after a high-profile school shooting in Thailand this August, where a student carried out a shooting rampage at a school on the outskirts of Bangkok.