Fatal shooting exposes ‘systemic failures’ in Philippine schools

A rare shooting at a public high school in the central Philippines that left three students dead and seven injured has gripped the country amid concerns over campus safety and the mental well-being of young people. Two Grade 9 students, aged 14 and 15, were arrested over the incident at the San Jose National High School in Tacloban City, Leyte province. The weapons involved were a .38 revolver and a 9mm pistol – the latter of which was traced to a police officer who was one of the suspects’ aunts. Authorities said the .38 revolver was linked to a security agency in Cebu City. An initial investigation by the Philippine National Police pointed to a grudge from school bullying as the cause of the violence. “We have taken custody of the 2 CICL [Child in Conflict with the Law] suspects … initially, it appears that the motive of the crime was grudge for school bullying,” national police spokesman Colonel Allen Rae Co said at a media briefing. A report from the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted an anonymous teacher who described one of the suspects as “quiet [and] socially withdrawn”, and had been held back a year due to poor academic performance. Co said the shooters barged into the school and opened fire “without saying anything”. At a separate briefing, regional police chief Brigadier General Jason Capoy said the school had more than 1,500 students, but only one guard overseeing the multiple entrances and exits on campus. Police apprehended the suspects the same day and turned them over to social welfare officers. Under Philippine law, the minimum age of criminal liability is 15, yet juvenile suspects below that age may be held criminally liable if authorities determine they acted “with discernment”. A systematic problem The tragedy has sparked concern among educators amid the rise of bullying in public schools and the lack of safety mechanisms on campus. A 2024 report by the Philippines’ Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) indicated that one in three Filipino students experienced bullying in school, based on results from the 2022 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, according to Lester John Lim, an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines’ Department of Family Life and Child Development. Lim said the Department of Education (DepEd) had issued mechanisms to address the widespread bullying in public schools, including establishing child protection committees, but that teachers were “overburdened with teaching and non-teaching responsibilities”. DepEd data showed that the country’s public school system faced a projected shortage of 165,000 classrooms and 56,000 teachers against 27.6 million enrollees in 2025. However, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) pegs the teacher shortage higher at about 150,000. Lim, an advocate for restorative justice among children in conflict with the law, warned that certain circumstances could leave children more vulnerable to running into legal trouble. “Students who experienced bullying, who live in populated and disadvantaged areas with a lack of resources, or those who are not attached to school or learning are more likely to be in conflict with the law or be involved in risky behaviours,” he said. Social isolation during the pandemic had also affected Filipino children’s emotional learning competencies, which Lim said would normally have been picked up via interactions in school with classmates and teachers. He called for the strengthening of child protection committees, which he said should include trained and licensed professionals instead of expecting teachers to take on additional responsibilities. “A systematic problem we have at the moment in the Philippines is the lack of guidance counsellors in public schools … now that there are official studies and reports, bullying as a grave issue needs to be addressed,” he said. “We cannot demand teachers handle issues with bullying if they are not trained with proper mindset and skills.” Lim said San Jose National High School could face scrutiny as to whether bullying complaints had been lodged with school administrators previously and whether such reports were acted on. He called for simple and transparent procedures for students to report bullying incidents, and said classes should remain suspended to allow victims and witnesses time to grieve and debrief. “Since preliminary reports point to a grudge from school bullying, a restorative approach is relevant. It looks at the systemic failures within the school culture,” he said. “Critical steps should be done to understand how the environment allowed bullying to escalate to mass violence, aiming to reform the school climate to prevent its recurrence.” Meanwhile, ACT said the immediate priority must be providing comprehensive medical, psychological, and psychosocial support to those affected by the tragedy. ACT Chairwoman Ruby Bernardo warned against relying on punitive and security-centred responses to the tragedy. “We must confront the deeper conditions that leave many young people struggling without adequate support and guidance. Schools cannot simply be treated as sites requiring more policing; they must be strengthened as spaces of care, learning, and human development,” Bernardo said. Pointing to the same EDCOM 2 report, Bernardo stressed that overcrowded classrooms contributed to a diminished sense of safety among learners, with students reporting regular classes as disorderly and marked by bullying, intimidation and harassment. “When classrooms contain fifty or sixty learners, meaningful guidance, supervision, and intervention become far more difficult. Students themselves report feeling safer and more supported in smaller classes,” Bernardo said. Her organisation cautioned against “knee-jerk responses that focus solely on punishment, increased policing, or the militarisation of schools”. Instead, she said, “genuine solutions” required “building a culture of peace, justice, accountability, and democratic participation through education”. This meant strengthening counselling services and ensuring psychosocial support, among other measures, she added. “If we are serious about creating safe learning environments, we must invest in the people and facilities that make safety possible,” Bernardo said. “This means hiring more teachers, constructing more classrooms to reduce overcrowding, and ensuring that every school has sufficient guidance counsellors, nurses, and student support personnel.” Carmelo Buhain, an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines’ College of Education, said immediate and long-term psychosocial support to the victims, their families, witnesses and the wider school community should be prioritised to aid their recovery. “Appropriate psychological assessment and intervention are important not only in addressing the current incident but also in helping prevent future acts of violence,” Buhain said. He also called on schools, communities and authorities to boost anti-bullying initiatives and expand access to mental health services, so students feel safe and empowered to seek help. “Ensuring the safety and well-being of every learner must remain a shared responsibility and a national priority.”

Fatal shooting exposes ‘systemic failures’ in Philippine schools

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The tragedy has sparked concern among educators amid the rise of bullying in public schools and the lack of safety mechanisms on campus

The tragedy has sparked concern among educators amid the rise of bullying in public schools and the lack of safety mechanisms on campus