Governor and welfare office split on the death toll at Banga National High School

A shooting inside Banga National High School in South Cotabato on Friday afternoon produced two official counts that do not match. Governor Reynaldo Tamayo Jr. said five minors were taken to hospital: four victims and a student suspect who then shot himself. The Department of Social Welfare and Development later said six students were confirmed dead and 17 were seriously injured. Reuters, quoting the governor earlier in the day, reported at least one dead and four wounded.

Police said the gunfire began around 1:30 p.m. The Banga Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office suspended classes at every level in the municipality. Students were sent home. Tamayo called the attack an isolated case and asked parents to stay calm. He said the school already has security guards paid by the local government.

The Department of Education in Manila issued a statement of concern without a casualty figure. It said it was coordinating with the Schools Division Office, the Region XII office, local officials and the police. DepEd offered psychological first aid and told the public not to circulate unverified video. The regional office separately asked people to stop sharing clips of the incident, citing trauma and the privacy of victims.

What the governor added about motive

Tamayo said an initial investigation pointed to the minor suspect as a member of a group he called the True Crime Community. He said police were still establishing what that online community is and whether it had any link to the shooting. He gave no names, no platform and no post. That line should be treated as an investigative lead, not a finding.

School shootings were uncommon in the Philippines for decades. That pattern has broken in the south this year. In June, two classmates opened fire at a public high school in Tacloban; at least three students were killed and about 20 injured. Last month a student in Zamboanga live-streamed the killing of another student in a classroom and then killed himself. On 13 September two groups of men opened fire outside Datu Usman Mampen Elementary School in Cotabato City, a polling site for the Bangsamoro Parliament election, killing three people and injuring at least 15. Friday’s attack at Banga is the latest in that cluster, though the facts of each case differ.

The Philippines requires background checks and psychological evaluation for licensed firearms. Illegal guns remain widely available. That gap is the practical problem behind each of these incidents, whatever the online culture around them turns out to be.

Why the numbers still move

Conflicting first-day tallies are common when a school is evacuated, several hospitals receive patients, and a suspect is himself wounded. The governor spoke from the province. DSWD spoke after its workers reached the ground and began family support. DepEd spoke before it had a verified list. Until the police and the hospitals publish a named list, the responsible account is the disagreement itself.

DSWD said social workers were already in Banga to provide psychological first aid. That work will continue even if the death count is revised down. Families of the wounded will need the same support as families of the dead. The municipality has closed the schools. Reopening will depend on a police report that has not yet been issued.

The next facts that matter are narrow. Who fired, with what weapon, how the weapon entered the campus, and which of the two casualty counts survives contact with hospital records. Until those points are written down by the police, the story in Banga is an attack on a public high school at 1:30 p.m., a town-wide class suspension, and two government offices that do not yet agree on how many children were killed.