Provincial officials said three people died in a shooting Friday, September 18, 2026, at Banga National High School in the southern Philippines, among them the 16-year-old suspected gunman, who turned the weapon on himself.

Albert Palencia, who is mayor of Banga town in South Cotabato province on Mindanao island, said eight other students were wounded, four of them critically, and that everyone struck by gunfire was 14 to 17 years old. A boy and a girl, both 14, were the two students killed, according to Reynaldo Tamayo, who governs South Cotabato.

Emergency crews were summoned at about 1:30 p.m. local time (0530 GMT) to the campus in Barangay Benitez. An alert reached the Philippine Red Cross at 2 p.m., the organization said, and it dispatched an ambulance staffed by four paramedics. Local media reported that officers of the Police were at the school investigating.

The Warning He Gave Before Lunch

The teenager told classmates that morning to go home, because his plan would be carried out after lunch, the mayor said.

Speaking to local DZBB radio, Palencia said: “After lunch, he started shooting students. He hit 10 students before killing himself.”

The suspect, a Grade 9 student, left the classroom where he belonged and seemingly shot without aim at the students gathered in the adjoining room, according to the mayor. He had pried open the vault where his father, a Department of Education employee, kept a 9-mm pistol, then brought the gun onto the campus. He carried two magazines and reloaded after emptying the first.

Investigators Look at Online Communities

The suspect was an intelligent student and an active taekwondo practitioner who showed no sign of having been bullied, Palencia said. Citing police, the mayor added that investigators found the teenager had posted in an online “true crime” community, and authorities are working to determine what the group is and whether such communities played any part in the attack. As of September 23, the initial investigation showed the Banga shooter allegedly watched and followed True Crime Community websites that purportedly tend to normalize violence.

Senators had already probed the June school shooting in Tacloban, and that inquiry weighed the role of the so-called True Crime Community. Police cybercrime officials characterize it as a web-based circle whose young users pass around and consume violent extremist material. Thai police offered a similar account of the teenager accused of killing nine people at a school outside Bangkok in August, telling reporters he had watched violent content online.

The Department of Education announced on Monday, September 21, that it will add another layer of school security — “digital safety” — following the recent school shootings. Sonny Angara, the department’s secretary, said the government has already implemented several physical measures to beef up security in schools, and that the campaign is meant to offer practical, age-appropriate guidance on safe chatting and online conduct.

The Department of Education said it was deeply concerned and was working with school administrators, municipal officials and police to establish what happened. The department also asked the public to keep calm and refrain from spreading unverified information. Classes at every level throughout the municipality of Banga were called off, according to the Banga Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office.

Marcos Orders an Investigation

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered an investigation the same day, with the weapon at the center of it. “I also ordered a thorough investigation into today’s shooting, including how a minor obtained a gun,” he said.

Tamayo, who said he was awaiting a police progress report, made the same point. Gun owners, he said, “must make sure that minors do not have access to them.” Once the police findings reached him, he told reporters, he would make them public.

Third Campus Shooting Since June

The Philippines, where such attacks had previously been rare, has now seen three deadly school shootings since June, the latest being September 18th’s bloodshed. Two classmates opened fire in June at a public high school in Tacloban, leaving at least three students dead and roughly 20 more hurt; police arrested two suspects, aged 14 and 15, and investigators believed a grudge over bullying drove the attack. Police reported that one of the shooters was a 14-year-old student who played the online multiplayer game Gorebox.

On August 18, a student at Ateneo de Zamboanga University in Zamboanga City streamed the attack he was carrying out on Facebook. He pointed a gun at a teacher, but it jammed before firing, and people fled into another classroom. He cleared the jam, fired into that room and killed a Grade 10 student, then killed himself. Twenty-three others were hurt, all but one of them while fleeing or from panic attacks. Police probers discovered the student shooter had visited several websites promoting nihilism.

Gun ownership in the Philippines is tightly regulated, with buyers subject to background checks and psychological evaluations, yet unlicensed weapons circulate widely; the national police have estimated that hundreds of thousands of firearms in civilian hands carry expired licenses or none at all.

The Philippine National Police said the incident remains under investigation, and that responding officers sealed off the area and worked with school authorities and medical teams. Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive.

National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag told a Senate budget hearing on Thursday, Sept. 24, that the bureau had apprehended one of the individuals “somehow related to what happened in South Cotabato.” The person’s identity was not disclosed.