The Philippines has started conducting active school shooter drills after a rare and deadly shooting incident in Tacloban City last month, where two teenage students opened fire, killing three classmates and injuring 20 others.

On Wednesday, July 15th, 2026, hundreds of students and teachers at an educational campus in Manila practiced barricading classrooms with desks and chairs and remaining silent as an armed actor wearing a black hoodie simulated a school shooter moving through the halls.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara acknowledged the rise in violent incidents, attributing it to exposure to harmful social media content, negative influences, and active recruitment by terrorist groups online. He emphasized the need for creativity and adaptation to the evolving tactics of perpetrators and stated that such drills would be implemented across public schools nationwide.

The June shooting in the central Visayas region shocked the Philippines, a nation of 113 million people where school shootings and mass violence in educational settings are extremely uncommon.

Sources

South China Morning Post World, "Philippines starts active school shooter drills after deadly attack in Tacloban City," July 15, 2026. Read more