Two dead in high school shooting at Ateneo de Zamboanga in southern Philippines

Morning attack on campus

A student opened fire at a high school attached to Ateneo de Zamboanga University on Tuesday morning in the southern Philippine port city of Zamboanga, roughly 800 kilometers south of Manila. The attack occurred at approximately 7:50 a.m. local time inside a classroom building located on a secured Catholic private campus in western Mindanao. Authorities reported that a Grade 9 student brought a.45-caliber pistol and a rifle onto the school grounds, while initial reports from journalists on the scene had described the suspect as a Grade 7 pupil. A male Grade 10 student was killed before the gunman died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Sequence of the classroom shooting

Footage of the attack was reportedly streamed live on Facebook via a body camera, showing a first-person perspective of a firearm moving along school hallways. The gunman entered a classroom and discharged his weapon toward a teacher seated at a desk, but the shot missed. The suspect then walked into an adjacent room and shot a Grade 10 student, who died from his injuries. Conflicting accounts emerged regarding additional casualties, with Mayor Khymer Adan Olaso and medical reports noting two other people sustained injuries, while school administrators and police spokespersons initially reported no further injuries.

Mayor Olaso described the recorded sequence of the attack during a radio broadcast on DZMM.

In the video, we see that he first shot at the teacher who was sitting at a table.

Campus lockdown and emergency response

Hundreds of students and faculty members were evacuated from the junior high school building as gunshots echoed across the grounds. Regional police spokesperson Major Shellamie Chang said tactical units deployed immediately to secure the perimeter and clear individual rooms. Ateneo de Zamboanga University President Father Ernald Andal confirmed shortly after the incident that the threat was contained and that the institution was coordinating fully with local law enforcement investigators.

University President Andal issued a public statement addressing student welfare and campus safety protocols following the incident.

We do not want any of these things to happen. We wish to prioritise the safety of all our students.

Broader wave of youth violence

The incident marks the country's second fatal school shooting in two months, following an attack in June at a public high school in Tacloban City where two teenage boys killed three students and wounded approximately 20 others. Philippine authorities subsequently banned the online sandbox game Gorebox after discovering one of the Tacloban shooters played it frequently, leading the Senate to open inquiries into youth exposure to violent digital media. The Department of Education warned a Senate committee in July about copycat violence following a series of subsequent bomb threats, stabbings, and weapon seizures across schools nationwide. Authorities across Southeast Asia have expanded scrutiny of online content following a separate school shooting earlier in August, in which a 14-year-old killed eight people in Thailand.