Panic and desperation during attack at school in the Philippines Two students opened fire at a high school in central Philippines this Monday (22), killing three classmates and wounding seven others, police reported. The suspects, aged 14 and 15, were armed with one pistol each and were arrested. Both they and the victims were students at San Jose National School in Tacloban City, where the attack occurred during the morning, according to regional police chief Brigadier General Jason Capoy. An investigation has been opened to determine the motive for the attack at the public school, which has more than 1.500 students.
Capoy stated that the suspects, who were close friends, said in an initial statement that they were being bullied at school. He did not provide further details. The teenagers have no criminal records, and it is not yet clear how they obtained the weapons used in the attack.
According to the police, they managed to enter the campus with the pistols because there was only one security guard on duty to monitor several school entrances and exits. Police investigators walk in front of the school entrance after a shooting at a school in Tacloban City, Leyte province, in 22 of June 2026. Noel Sianosa/AFP Now on g1 “The suspects invaded two classrooms because, after the shots in the first one, students ran to escape, and they apparently chased some victims into another room,” Capoy told journalists. Most of the dead and injured were female students, he added. One of the suspects was detained inside the school immediately after the attack. The second fled and hid in a nearby house but was located by the police after residents alerted authorities. The President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., ordered a full investigation into the case and called for increased security in schools, workplaces, and public areas, according to Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro. “The President was saddened by this incident.
Anyone, especially the victims' parents, would feel saddened and terrified,” Castro said. The national police asked the population to remain calm and cooperate with authorities by providing information that could assist in the investigations. Gun crimes are relatively common in the Philippines, partly due to the wide circulation of unlicensed firearms, but school shootings are considered rare in the country.
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