June’s fatal shooting at a school in the Visayas region shocked the nation, where mass violence in educational settings is very rare
2-MIN READ2-MINBloombergPublished: 4:29pm, 15 Jul 2026The Philippines has begun holding active school shooter drills after a rare act of violence in Tacloban City last month during which two teenage students opened fire, killing three schoolmates and injuring 20 others.On Wednesday, at one educational campus in Manila, hundreds of students and teachers practised barricading classrooms with desks and chairs and staying silent as an armed actor wearing a black hoodie scoured the halls and rooms.
“We acknowledge the increasing number of violent incidents because of exposure to damaging social media sites, wrong influences and terrorist groups online actively recruiting,” Education Secretary Sonny Angara told reporters.
“We really have to be very creative and adjust to the new activities of perpetrators,” he said, adding that such exercises would be replicated in public schools across the country.
3 killed in school shooting in central PhilippinesJune’s fatal shooting at a high school in the central Visayas region shocked the nation of 113 million, where school shootings and mass violence in educational settings are very uncommon.
