EDITORIAL — Unsafe for learning
Just two weeks after the Department of Education conducted a National Simultaneous School Safety Drill in both private and public elementary and high schools, at least three Grade 8 students were killed and six wounded in yet another shooting incident yesterday afternoon, this time in South Cotabato.
Authorities said a 16-year-old ninth grader took the 9mm of his father, an employee of the local government, and managed to bring the weapon into the Banga National High School.
After the shooting rampage, the boy turned the gun on himself. His mother, a DepEd employee, reportedly said she had planned to take the boy to a psychologist because he had become part of the True Crimes Community, an online subculture revolving around the glorification of mass killers and violent criminals.
South Cotabato Gov. Reynaldo Tamayo Jr. said the shooter was reportedly a “recruiter” for True Crimes.
It was the third deadly school shooting since June 22, when two boys aged 14 and 15 brought guns into the San Jose National High School in Tacloban and began firing randomly, killing three students and wounding 20 other people. Both boys were reportedly addicted to the sandbox video game GoreBox that features extreme violence.
Nearly all the shots were fired by the 14-year-old using the 9mm service pistol that he took from the home of his aunt, police S/Sgt. Arla Ray Paciencia, who now faces administrative and criminal complaints and may be dismissed from the service.
On Aug. 18, a Grade 8 student of the Ateneo de Zamboanga also brought two guns to the university’s junior high school building and began shooting, fatally hitting another student.
The gunman then went up to the fourth floor of the building and shot himself. He had taken the guns belonging to his father, who had left the firearms in the car that brought the boy to school.
Apart from losing his son, the father, Lt. Lars Jalani II, has been sacked as district commander of the Bureau of Customs Enforcement and Security Service at the Zamboanga port. Like Paciencia, Jalani faces administrative and criminal complaints.
Following these tragedies, authorities had reminded law enforcement personnel to ensure the proper safekeeping of their guns, keeping the weapons away from other people particularly minors.
The warning apparently went unheeded in the case of the shooter in Banga town.
Since the shooting in Tacloban, all schools are also supposed to have tightened security. And then there was the launch on Sept. 3 of the nationwide school safety drills.
Yet here we are again, facing another deadly tragedy involving students in a high school. What will it take to make schools truly safe spaces for learning?
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