A ninth-grade student livestreamed the fatal shooting of a schoolmate before taking his own life at a Catholic university in the Philippines on Tuesday, authorities said.
The shooting occurred at Ateneo de Zamboanga University in western Mindanao, marking the country’s second school shooting in two months.
Regional police spokeswoman Shella Chang said the student entered the classroom of the victim, shot them and then went to the fifth floor, where he shot himself.
Interior Secretary Victor Remulla confirmed that the alleged shooter livestreamed the incident on social media. His Facebook account has since been disabled.
Local media circulated footage from the livestream showing the barrel of a gun moving along a school hallway before being pointed into a classroom and fired. Students in school uniforms can then be heard screaming as they flee.
Police have not disclosed the ages of the shooter or victim, while authorities were still determining whether anyone else was injured.
The national police are investigating the motive for the shooting, the ownership and source of the firearm, and how the weapon was brought onto the school campus, the interior ministry said.
Ateneo de Zamboanga president Father Guillrey Andal confirmed the two deaths and said the university was “deeply saddened” by the incident.
“We are in the process of working with the police for us to be able to identify them, so that we can communicate first with their loved ones,” he told reporters outside the school.
Andal said the shooting had caused “deep concern and worry”, adding that the school’s security team had been preparing an active-shooter simulation exercise before the incident.
“Prior to this, our security team had even been preparing a simulation exercise, precisely because we understand the value to everyone — our students, our personnel — of safety.”
School shootings are uncommon in the Philippines. However, three teenage students were killed and 20 others injured in an attack at a school in the central Philippines in June.
Following that incident, Ateneo de Zamboanga was among schools across the country that conducted active-shooter drills.
Although civilian gun ownership is tightly regulated in the Philippines, authorities say a substantial black market for firearms remains.
