FILIPINO SCHOOL SHOOTING: It Is Time To Be Proactive And Not Reactive.

A rare incident of a school shooting in Tacloban City Philippines  is the kind of story people want to believe won't happen “here” until it does. I read through the initial reporting on the San Jose National High School attack, react to what’s been confirmed so far, and sit with the uncomfortable reality that rare incidents can still expose big gaps in school readiness, communication, and follow-through.

I also talk about bullying as more than just a schoolyard issue. When reports point to constant bullying, it raises tough questions about warning signs, student support systems, and how schools can intervene early through clear reporting channels, counseling, and real consequences for harassment. 

From there, I get practical. Watching the panic in the circulating clips leads to a discussion on basic active shooter response: RUN, HIDE FIGHT; lock and barricade, stay out of view, stay quiet, and follow a plan. It’s not about importing fear or pretending the Philippines is the same as the US, it’s about being proactive and building simple routines that protect lives during the first critical minutes. We also widen the lens to mental health, violence prevention, and why “one simple fix” rarely solves complex harm.

If you found this valuable, subscribe for more grounded takes on safety, local news, and real-world preparedness. Share the episode with a friend, and please leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Transcript

Quick Audio Check And Hello

SPEAKER_00 0:17

This is the objective jerk, and I am said jerk. How's everybody doing? Hope all is well for all my listeners. I think I'm all good to go as far as audio, so let me know if you have issues with the audio. I think I think it's the last one sounded pretty

A Rare Philippines School Shooting

SPEAKER_00 0:37

good to me. I wanted to talk about a recent school shooting in the Philippines, which is yeah, I know in the States it you know happens more often than not, sadly. But it is kind of rare here. And I talked about the person that had the toy gun at the at the restaurant a little while ago, and I kind of mentioned just how it's kind of different here, which is not a bad thing, you know, but stuff like this, it may prove to start happening a little more frequently. Hopefully not, but you know, it's in the states, businesses and schools, they do active shooter drills and training and how to respond. And here they don't. And it's obvious in the video I'm gonna show, but I mean that's you know, it's not their fault, it's just it's a different culture, it's a different world almost, you know. So but uh but let's get into it. Uh let me switch over. So here's the Daily Tribune, which is the Filipino Tribune. I'm trying to, you know, focus on Filipino stories a little bit more. So this one is one of them. So here we go. Three students killed, five wounded, and Taclaban school shooting. I mean, there's some shootings here and there. I talked about the uh the like government officials and whatever they've gotten, but as far as schools, there was something a little while ago, I want to say, but that was a couple years ago, I think. So this is, you know. Anyway, three students were killed while five others were wounded in a shooting incident inside San Jose National High School on Monday morning. Initial report from police station one of the Tacloban City Police Office said authorities received a call regarding the shooting shortly after 9 a.m. Police identified two suspects, both minors, one of them 15, grade 9 student. Well, was arrested inside the school premises. Second suspect initially escaped but was later taken into custody after reportedly expressing through the 911 emergency hotline his attention to surrender. Tacleban City Police Office Chief Colonel

Bullying As A Warning Sign

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Noel Gedigan said one of the suspects admitted that he had been subjected to constant bullying in school. Now, I know bullying is kind of a big thing here in the Philippines. Like people get bullied a lot. Like, I mean, people get bullied. You know, I got bullied, but I think in the states it's kind of it's kind of tapered down a little bit, at least from what I could tell. Not that it doesn't exist, but then coming here, it's like it's they're a little behind, you know. As far as the states is, you know, trying to curve the bullying. But anyway, however, get again stressed that all circumstances surrounding the incident remain under investigation. Videos circulating online showed scenes of panic inside the campus with students screaming and crying as gunshots rang out. In one clip, terrified students could be heard repeating repeatedly shouting, Mama Mama, while seeking safety. Department of Education Regional Office 8 expressed deep concern over the incident and its impact on learners, school personnel, and families in a statement. Regional director's not even gonna try. Dep Ed immediately coordinated with the Philippine National Police and school officials to ensure the safety and security of everyone on campus. The agency also worked with the Department of Social Welfare and Department and other partner agencies to provide assistance and psychosocial support to affected students and personnel. While the investigation remains ongoing, the I don't know urge the public to refrain from spreading unverified information and to rely on official statements from authorized agencies. The safety, security, and well-being of our leaders and personal personnel remain our highest priority. Statement read. And so that's kind of it. Okay. Yeah, pretty much uh I don't know, kind of see what comes out further because I don't know. They to me Philippine journalists and news media are not the greatest at following up on stuff. I know. So I'm curious to see how this how this plays out. But uh yeah, so here's the I'm gonna play the video that uh somebody was on uh I don't know why I switched it, but this was on X. So

Watching The Panic Video

SPEAKER_00 5:39

let's hear. Oh, this is gonna be loud, huh? Oh no, it's halfway. All right, here we go. It's pretty rough. But that's a thing that I don't know, like it's I'm trying to be like nice and not be a dick. But one thing I've noticed here with like Filipinos is like being at the mall or whatever, and then the power will go out, power surge or something, and just everybody's like, ah, ah, they start screaming. What the fuck? You know, and it's just like it's just the power, relax, people. You know what I mean? Like it's just kind of a so when something like this, which hey man, that's a scary, you know, situation. So I mean, but and again, this is not any fault on them, but these are things that they kind of teach you, and I guess myself being exposed to this training and then giving this training, that screaming like that is like the last thing you want to do. You wanna shut the door, block the windows, get out of view, and be absolutely quiet, and barricade the door. So them screaming every time and you you know, yelling is it's not doesn't help. And then it's kind of hard to tell. It kind of looks like so. I think the door was being blocked. I don't know if it was by people or what, and maybe somebody was trying the shooter was trying to get in, and then he he shot, and then I think he wounded the individual there. At first I thought the guy was like opening the door to look and see, you know, and I'm just like, oh no, what are you doing? But those are all those are all things that you know getting the proper training can help. But you know, hopefully, I mean this is a pretty, you know, it's rare. It's very rare here compared to the states, but you know the thing is you can't wait until it's not rare before you start implementing, you know, contingency plans in the training. You gotta you gotta try and like, okay, well, before this happens or gets any worse, let's try and nip it in the butt, right? Get the training so then when somebody tries to do this again, they completely fail and it doesn't and doesn't inspire anybody, you know. They gotta do it. Sucks, but you gotta, man. You can't wait. You can't wait for a crisis to respond. You need to try and try and be a little more you wanna be proactive and create planning and training before the stuff gets crazy instead of reacting to it, you know. And that's kind of easier said than done, because I mean to be proactive, you could go okay. Well, let's do some let's figure out what we're gonna do if aliens come down or whatever.

Guns Violence And Mental Health

SPEAKER_00 9:17

I got a feeling that it might start kind of happening more and more, you know. People get inspired, kids get inspired because of stuff, and and then yeah, you know, a lot of people are let's see, reports are saying 15-year-old, yeah, this is blah blah blah. There was something where it's like, yeah, look at oh yeah, Philippines importing enriched white American culture.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

You're gonna cry, you're gonna cry, kitty baby? Oh, you're gonna fucking cry.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

I mean, that's kind of a dumb way to say it, but they're not wrong, you know? And it's not white, it's just American for one thing. But people are gonna do violence regardless. Look at what happens in England, everything. People just use acid, use knives, use you know, it yes, America has a lot of violent incidences involving guns because, yes, we have a lot of guns in the country. Lots of people own guns, and they, you know, but those people would still find another way if it wasn't for the guns. So you're not gonna stop violence by getting rid of guns unless you magically get rid of every single gun in the world and the whole I, you know, black powder and designs to you know what I mean? It's just not possible. I totally agree with you. Mental health and learning how to see the signs and you know, try and curb bullying and how to effectively react to something like that is the best thing you can do. But like I said, I'm trying to be a little more active with like my local news and everything, especially you know, stuff that kind of maybe might be interesting for you know the rest of the world. Because I do have got some listeners uh that are it's mainly in the states. Like, well, 50% is in the states, 13 is in Europe, 23 is in Asia. Actually, oh it's kind of changed a little bit. And I do talk about some stuff, but I don't really talk too much about like headlines and news. It's you know, talking about my personal experiences, but some of that's a lot of it is like terms and agencies and stuff, I don't know what it means.

unknown 11:29

You dumb fuck!

SPEAKER_00 11:31

You know, like like over here, everything's like metric, right? Someone tells me, hey, I weigh 200 pounds, I'm like, oh okay, I can I can I know what that means. But when somebody says, hey, I weigh 88 kilos or something like that, I don't know what that means. I don't know how to, you know, and it's kind of the same thing with a lot of the the interagency departments and all this stuff. They like, you know, I'll read something and it's like I don't know, it doesn't make it doesn't click with me what it is, and you know, so it's it's hard for me to kind of get invested with like headlines and stuff here. So you're the pussy boy, but you know, it's like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get, I guess, right? And then I was gonna show this happened in and this kind of I want to answer.

Where It Happened And Where I Am

SPEAKER_00 12:22

I had a lot of family and friends that were like, Oh my gosh, are you okay? You know, when that earthquake hit, and I'm like, Yeah, I'm good. Like, people don't realize how big the Philippines is, like they think it's just like one little island or something. I used to do the same thing whenever stuff would happen, you know, when I was married to my wife, and you'd hear something, I'd be like, Oh my gosh, is your family good? And she's like, Yeah, they're they're fine, you know. It's like, all right, so so I get it. But so here, this is talk tackle ban, probably saying that wrong. So I apologize. So this is where the shooting happened, right? And let's scroll out a little bit. So we'll scroll out, we'll scroll out, we'll scroll out. All right, there we go. So this is the Philippines, all of this right here. So this is where that happened, and I'm up here in the northern Luzon, like the northern part of northern Luzon. So this is the main island where Manila is and everything. So I'm way up north there, so it's pretty damn far from me. And the earthquake was not too far from this area, too. I want to say. So yeah, I mean, it's not like, oh, I felt a little shaking. No, we get our own earthquakes, so I didn't feel that one. But and generally, you know, violent stuff seems to happen more in the southern part of the Philippines, mainly down here. But like these outer, lower parts is kind of where the Islamic individuals are, and they, you know, there's violence towards you know, Christian Catholic churches and stuff like that. And I've talked about before, you know, you have the Republicans or the the oh, what's it called? It's the the communist groups. You know, they were kind of prevalent back in back in the day, and they're still around, but they're not really an issue as much as you know some of the Islamic aggressors trying to look, can't see. But yeah, so like down south is where a lot of the stuff kind of seems more of the stuff as far as like violence happens. There was that American, you know what, man, I forgot about that until just now. There was an American that was kidnapped down south. The last thing I remember is he got shot in the leg and most likely was he probably died. He was married, I think, to a woman, and but he was he had a little TikTok channel and he was kind of saying some stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Why the fuck would I blow up Chick-fil-A?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

It's fucking and kind of causing problems for himself, but this is like way down south, so it's kind of a little more a little more risky down there, you know. But it's no different than you know, Detroit or Chicago, you know, there's a lot a lot more violent interactions there than you know in other places in the state. So I mean it's not exactly the same, but it's you know, it's not as crazy as people think. But anyway, and that is

Final Thoughts And Listener Check-In

SPEAKER_00 15:15

it. So I just wanted to talk about the shooting and and plus again, you know, do another test on the audio. Let me know how the audio works for you if it's good or not. And if you got any questions, let me know. All right, I appreciate your time. Thanks for hanging out and God bless. All right, bye.