Gunfire at Banga National High School in the southern Philippines left three people dead on Friday, September 18, 2026, among them the 16-year-old suspected gunman, who turned the weapon on himself, provincial officials said.
Albert Palencia, mayor of Banga town in South Cotabato province on the island of Mindanao, said eight other students were wounded, four of them critically, and that everyone hit by gunfire was between 14 and 17 years old. Reynaldo Tamayo, governor of South Cotabato, said the two slain students were 14-year-olds, one a boy and one a girl. Joseph Franco, head of the Banga Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, gave this accounting as of Saturday, September 19: one student had been referred to the Cotabato Regional and Medical Center in Cotabato City and was in the intensive care unit in critical condition; three had been discharged from hospital at about 7:15 p.m. on Friday, September 18 and taken home; and three had been referred from South Cotabato Provincial Hospital to two private hospitals in Koronadal City. “May nai-refer tayo sa Cotabato Regional and Medical Center sa Cotabato City kasi kritikal ‘yon. Nasa ICU ngayon for further observation sa status ng isang pasyente,” Franco said in an interview on Dobol B TV.
Emergency services were called to the campus in Barangay Benitez at about 1:30 p.m. local time (0530 GMT). The Philippine Red Cross said it was alerted at 2 p.m. and sent an ambulance with four paramedics. Police were at the school investigating, local media reported.
What the Gunman Told His Classmates
The mayor said the teenager told classmates that morning to go home, because he would be carrying out his plan after lunch.
“After lunch, he started shooting students. He hit 10 students before killing himself,” Palencia said in an interview with local DZBB radio.
The suspect, a Grade 9 student, walked out of his own classroom and appeared to fire at random on students in the room next door, according to the mayor. He had pried open the vault holding his father’s 9-mm pistol and carried the weapon onto the campus; the mayor said the father is a Department of Education employee. The teenager brought two magazines, reloading once the first was empty.
Authorities Examine Online Communities
Palencia described the suspect as an intelligent student and an active taekwondo practitioner, and said there was no indication he had been bullied. Citing police, the mayor said investigators found the teenager had posted in an online “true crime” community, and authorities are working to determine the nature of the group and whether such communities played any part in the attack.
Tamayo said the shooter was reportedly a “recruiter” for True Crimes, according to reporting published September 19.
The suspected gunman’s mother, a Department of Education 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, according to an editorial published September 19. That same editorial described the father as “an employee of the local government,” a detail that differs from the mayor’s account that the father works for the Department of Education.
The initial investigation showed the shooter allegedly watched and followed True Crime Community websites, a columnist reported on September 23.
A Senate investigation into the June school shooting in Tacloban had already opened that line of inquiry, examining the role of the so-called True Crime Community — which police cybercrime officials characterize as a web-based circle where young users pass around and consume violent extremist material. Thai police said much the same about the teenager accused of killing nine people at a school outside Bangkok in August, telling reporters he had watched violent content online.
Conflicting Figures and Suspended Classes
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) first reported that six students had been killed and 17 wounded, then revised the toll to three dead and eight injured. Franco, the municipal disaster office head, counted seven injured students and three dead including the shooter as of Saturday, September 19, while Palencia and the DSWD have said eight students were wounded, four of them critically. Tamayo, speaking early on, put it at three killed and six hurt. One video posted on Facebook showed a man carrying what appeared to be a wounded child away from the school. In another, a teacher speaking in a local dialect said there were two shooters, while a student insisted they were outsiders; official accounts have described a single gunman.
The Department of Education said it was deeply concerned and working with school administrators, municipal officials and police to piece together what happened, and urged the public to stay calm and avoid circulating unverified information. The Banga Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office said classes at all levels across the municipality of Banga were suspended.
On Monday, September 21, the Department of Education announced it will add another layer of school security — “digital safety.” Secretary Sonny Angara said the government has already implemented several physical security measures in schools in response to the recent incidents of school violence. The campaign intends to provide practical and age-appropriate guidance on safe chatting and online conduct.
Marcos Orders an Inquiry
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered an investigation the same day, putting 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, pressed the same point. Gun owners, he said, “must make sure that minors do not have access to them.” He told reporters he would release the police findings once he had them.
Third Campus Shooting Since June
Friday’s bloodshed was the third deadly school shooting in the Philippines since June, in a country where such attacks had previously been rare. Two classmates opened fire in June at a public high school in Tacloban, leaving at least three students dead and roughly 20 more hurt. Two suspects, aged 14 and 15, were arrested, and investigators believed a grudge over bullying drove the attack.
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. Another 23 people were hurt, all but one of them while fleeing or from panic attacks.
Buyers in the Philippines must pass background checks and psychological evaluations under tightly regulated gun ownership rules, 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.
