A ninth-grade student livestreamed himself shooting a classmate to death at Ateneo de Zamboanga University before shooting himself, officials said. The video shows the weapon moving down a hallway like a first-person shooter game before it was aimed into a classroom. National police are investigating the motive, the firearm's source, and how the weapon entered campus while the school cooperates with authorities and seeks to notify families. Two fatalities were confirmed; the number of injured remains unclear.
Philippine High School Shooting Livestreamed: Ninth-Grader Kills Classmate, Then Himself at Ateneo de Zamboanga
Philippine police gather at a school following the shooting in Zamboanga (Roel Parreno)
A student livestreamed himself shooting a classmate dead and then taking his own life at Ateneo de Zamboanga University, a Catholic private school in western Mindanao, authorities said on Tuesday.
Incident Details
Regional police spokeswoman Shella Chang told AFP that the suspected shooter went to the victim's classroom, shot the student, then went up to the fifth floor and fatally shot himself. In a separate statement, Interior Secretary Victor Remulla said the ninth-grade suspect livestreamed the incident on social media; the alleged shooter's Facebook account has since been disabled.
Local news footage of the video circulating online shows the barrel of a gun moving down a corridor in a manner similar to a first-person shooter video game before the weapon is aimed into a classroom and fired. Children in school uniforms are shown screaming and running for an exit. Officials have not yet released final casualty figures beyond confirming two fatalities, and it was not immediately clear how many others were injured.
Ongoing Investigation
The interior ministry said national police are working 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.' Police have not yet formally released the ages of the shooter or the victim, even as government officials have described the suspect as a ninth-grade student.
Ateneo de Zamboanga president Father Guillrey Andal confirmed the two fatalities and said the school was 'deeply saddened' and is cooperating with investigators. 'We are in the process of working with the police so that we can identify them and communicate first with their loved ones,' he told reporters, acknowledging the community's deep concern. He also said the school's security team had been preparing a simulation exercise prior to the attack.
Context
School shootings are rare in the Philippines, but earlier in June an attack at a school in the central Philippines left three teenagers dead and about 20 others wounded. In the aftermath of that attack, many schools nationwide—including Ateneo de Zamboanga—carried out active shooter drills. Legal gun ownership in the Philippines is tightly regulated, but authorities say a large black market for firearms persists.
Note: Officials continue to investigate and have urged the public not to circulate graphic material from the livestream out of respect for victims and their families.
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