[] Killers and victims aside, common denominator was the site of violence: a school. And the issue of liability of minors has made the 2026 mass shooting stand out.
[] Four years ago, an ex-mayor from Basilan was in Ateneo de Manila law school in Quezon City to attend her daughter's graduation. Last Monday, students and teachers at San Jose National School in Tacloban City were starting classes first day of the week when shooting occurred.
THE violent incident in San Jose National High School in Tacloban City (Leyte) last Monday (June 22, 2026) calls to mind a similar mass shooting at Ateneo de Manila University law school in Quezon City four years ago, on July 24, 2022.
On the recent incident, here's the situationer (updated as of Thursday, June 25, 2026): Three students were killed, 20 injured. Two suspects, both minors, were taken into custody and turned over to social welfare authorities. Police have filed charges and recommendation against the shooters.
And here are takeaways from the parallel incidents:
[1] SECOND MASS SHOOTING IN SCHOOL; FIRST WITH MINORS AS SHOOTERS. In the country's recent history, it was the second mass shooting that occurred in a school campus. The first was in 2022 at Ateneo de Manila law school in Quezon City.
Other mass shootings included (a) the 2013 Cavite shooting in which a drunk gunman in a random shooting spree killed eight and injured 11 people, and (b) the 2009 Maguindanao in which 58 people, including news media workers, who accompanied a politician on the way to file his candidacy for mayor, were kidnapped and later killed.
But the Tacloban shooting was the first mass killing in which the shooters are minors.
That record is based only on available published news accounts. Reason: "No official statistics or database tracking an exact total number in the Philippines over the past three decades."
Public mass shootings are historically rare in the country. AI Meta sees "fewer than 10 highly publicized incidents" that met the definition of mass shootings.
[2] ISSUE ON LIABILITY OF MINORS RAISED, inevitably because of the ages of the shooters, 15 and 14.
On the Ateneo shooting, shooter Chao Tiao Yumol was charged with three counts of murder and attempted murder, motor vehicle theft, and malicious mischief.
No complication from the gunman's age: he was 38.
In the Tacloban case, police filed multiple criminal charges -- 3 murder, 3 frustrated murder, multiple physical injuries -- against the 15-year-old student (identified only as "Rod"). They recommended "long rehabilitation" for the 14-year-old ("Nash").
Which has set off national debate on whether the age of liability -- 15 and over but below 18 -- shouldn't be adjusted further.
Under Republic Act 9344 (The Juvenile and Justice Welfare Act of 2005), above-15-below-18 youths must have "acted with discernment" in order to be held liable.
[3] RELATED ISSUE TO LIABILITY WAS EXPOSURE TO VIOLENCE IN ONLINE GAMES, like Gorebox and Roblox, which are suspected to make the students prone to unleashing violence. The 14-year-old shooter reportedly had an "obsession" with Gorebox.
Out for revenge on co-students bullying them, the two tormented and violence-influenced students must have resorted to shooting.
Or so goes the initial theory that police didn't dismiss.
The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center has reportedly blocked "temporarily" the online game, pending an assessment of its influence on the Tacloban shooters.
[4] CRITERIA TO CALL IT 'MASS' SHOOTING OR KILLING. Circumstances in both cases of tragedy, four years apart, qualify them as mass killing or, specifically, mass shooting.
Philippine police and health authorities tag an incident as a "mass casualty event" when the number of deaths and injuries "overwhelm local emergency, medical and law enforcement resources."
Under the Revised Penal Code, there's no distinct crime called mass killing or mass shooting. Prosecutors and courts do not use the specific words "mass shooting" in an indictment.
Thus authorities and news media turn to international institutions for bases in calling an incident mass killing or mass shooting.
The Leyte and Ateneo shootings apparently qualify as mass killings, based on the number of people killed, intent and operational factor. School shootings usually are mass killings because of the crowd or population at the scene.
These requirements are included in most standards for mass killing:
-- One or more shooters; multiple victims; and one or more public or populated locations.
-- Victims and location are chosen at random or for their symbolic value;
-- Crisis lasts typically for a few minutes or within a single 24-hour period.
[5] THREE OR MORE VICTIMS. Under US federal statute, a mass killing is three or more killings in a single, continuous incident.
Public tracking devices, like the Gun Violence Archive and Australian Institute of Criminology, consider it a mass killing if four or more victims are shot and injured or killed.
In this week's school shooting in Tacloban, three students were killed, 20 injured (15 of whom directly wounded by gunfire and five others injured during the stampede as the schoolers fled).
In 2022, Rose Furigay -- a former mayor of Lamitan City, de jure capital of Basilan Province -- and two others (a security guard and the ex-mayor's executive assistant) were killed at the Ateneo law school campus and four others, including the shooter and the ex-mayor's daughter, were injured.
[6] ACTIVE SHOOTING; FLEEING, STAMPEDE. The Tacloban shooting had two shooters; the Ateneo shooting had a lone gunman. All used firearms.
In the Ateneo law school shooting, the gunman, Chao Tiao Yumol, used a .45 cal. Rock Island Armory 1911 semi-automatic pistol.
From the shooters in the Tacloban high school shooting, confiscated were a Glock pistol and a caliber .38 revolver, traced to a policewoman and a security agency, respectively.
The US FBI defines an active shooter as "an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area," with the threat ongoing rather than a fixed casualty count.
In the Ateneo incident, a police chase of the shooter prolonged the threat by hours: from 3:45 p.m. of July 24, 2022 to until the suspect was arrested after a chase up to Aurora Blvd. Quezon City police deemed the threat ended "in a matter of hours."
Last Monday's crisis at the Tacloban high school lasted "only 10 minutes," from 9:20 a.m. when the shooting began to 9:30 a.m. when primary suspect "Rod" was subdued by police.
[7] IN US, 512 SCHOOL SHOOTINGS, 1,733 FATALITIES SINCE 1966. Which gives a glimpse of the situation elsewhere, compared to ours, on the matter of school shootings.
A trickle here compared to the deluge in the US. The country has had only two publicized school shootings since the time news stories were started to be archived digitally.
Given the fact that Filipinos have easy access to lots of guns, Time magazine said in a June 15, 2022 article, there must be a reason why mass killings in the Philippines are "very few" and far between.
And it's this, Time said: Ingrained values are restraining Filipinos from using guns indiscriminately, despite the easy access to firearms.
The "hiya" thing, Time said, "strong ties of Philippine kinship mean troubled individuals are likely to be identified before they become shooters."