South Cotabato campus gun attack planned a month prior

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The student who killed two schoolmates with a pistol and wounded six others in a shooting incident inside a school campus in Banga, South Cotabato, on Friday, September 18, had long planned the attack, and his friends knew about it. The attacker attacked schoolmates at Banga National High School (BNHS) in Banga town, South Cotabato, not too distant from the provincial capital, Koronadal City. Banga Mayor Albert Palencia and South Cotabato Gov. Reynaldo Tamayo Jr. separately told reporters on Saturday that the attacker's phone had a Messenger group chat where he had told classmates that he planned to attack schoolmates at their campus, possibly agitated by family and personal problems. Tamayo said the BNHS campus is guarded by 11 security guards. He and Palencia had separately told reporters that the student who perpetrated the attack was an intelligent student whose father is an employee of the Department of Education 12, which has jurisdiction over schools in South Cotabato and the three other provinces and four cities in Region 12. “According to one of the Messenger group chats with his friends, he planned the atrocity in August. He had told his friends then he was to execute his plan on September 3, but did not push it through,” Palencia said. The attacker had told his friends, in his last chat with them, not to attend classes on Friday, for he was to proceed with his plan to attack schoolmates with a gun, according to Palencia. Barangay officials and teachers had told reporters that he entered the campus during the noon break Friday, barged into classrooms and fired at students eating packed food. Palencia said the attacker, armed with his father's 9-millimeter pistol, reportedly got a low grade in one of his subjects during their most recent grading period. One student died at the school, while another died later at a hospital. Six other students were injured and are receiving treatment at different hospitals. Education Secretary Sonny Angara was at the BNHS campus on Saturday and, while there, told reporters that there is a need to tighten security in schools to prevent such incidents and that security guards guarding campuses ought to have metal detectors to prevent the entry of students carrying guns. Angara said they need to wait for the police to disclose the findings of investigators on the real circumstances of the incident. The DepEd chief said the attacker had left a letter stating he knew what he was about to do was wrong, but still perpetrated the attack. Tamayo, now in his third term as governor, has tasked the chief of the South Cotabato Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, nurse Rolly Aquino, to extend essential relief supplies to the wounded students now undergoing treatment in hospitals. Tamayo, presiding chairperson of the multi-sector Regional Peace and Order Council 12, said local executives in Banga, officials of the Banga Municipal Police Station and the South Kostabato Provincial Police Office, and their superiors in the Police Regional Office 12 are cooperating in bringing closure to the incident.