Two teenagers armed with a pistol and a revolver opened fire in a classroom in the southern Philippines on Monday, killing three people and wounding seven others in a rare school shooting.
The police said the two attackers, ages 14 and 15, entered San Jose National High School in Tacloban City in the morning through the main gate and then went to a classroom with around 50 students. About 9 a.m., they began firing without warning, the police said.
The police did not identify the shooters because they were minors. One was in ninth grade and the other in 10th grade. The police arrested the boys on Monday and recovered at least 40 empty shells and two magazines from the scene.
Colonel Allen Rae Co, a spokesman for the national police, said at a news conference that it remained unclear whom the attackers were specifically targeting, though some clues had emerged.
“Initially, it appears that the motive of the crime is grudge for school bullying,” Col. Co said.
One of the assailants appeared to have used a 9-millimeter pistol issued to his aunt, a police officer. The other used a .38-caliber revolver registered to a private security agency operating in the province of Cebu.
Col. Co said the police-officer aunt and the owner of the other gun were being investigated for negligence.
The shooting was the latest in a series of recent violent episodes among minors that have set off a debate about juvenile justice in the Philippines. A senator has called for the age of criminal responsibility to be lowered to 10 from 15.
This month, an 11th grader was stabbed to death by a schoolmate at a high school in Cavite Province near Manila. At another school in the same province, seven fifth graders were wounded after a 14-year-old girl attacked them with a knife.
The authorities did not immediately release details about the victims of Monday’s attack in Tacloban but said that the wounded were in stable condition.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s spokeswoman, Claire Castro, said that he was saddened by the attack and had called for an investigation.
The Tacloban city government said in a statement that it “strongly condemns this act of violence and assures the families of the victims that they are not alone during this difficult time.” It suspended classes at San Jose National High School and two other schools in the district starting Tuesday.
