Vice President Sara Duterte personally visited and offered condolences to the families of the students who were killed in the shooting incident at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City on June 22.
In a social media post on Wednesday, the Office of the Vice President (OVP) said Duterte met with the families of the three students who died in the attack.
“Personal na bumisita at nakiramay si Vice President Sara Duterte sa mga pamilya ng tatlong mag-aaral ng San Jose National High School na nasawi sa insidente ng pamamaril sa loob ng paaralan noong Hunyo 22, 2026,” the OVP said.
“Ipinaabot ng Bise Presidente ang kanyang taos-pusong pakikiramay at pakikiisa sa pakikidalamhati ng mga naulilang pamilya,” it added.
In a separate statement issued Tuesday, Duterte said the deadly shooting should serve as a “wake-up call” for the current administration, stressing the need to strengthen measures to ensure the safety of learners.
“The continuing loss of young lives should serve as a wake-up call to this administration. The government must act now to make our schools safer and to better protect our learners,” Duterte said.
The Vice President, who previously served as Education secretary, said the incident underscored the urgent need for the government to prioritize learner safety.
“No parent sends a child to school expecting that child to become a victim of violence. Yet this is not the first time that learners have been harmed either inside our schools or during school activities,” she said.
Duterte also said the tragedy exposed what she described as the government’s failure to recognize the importance of intelligence gathering and threat identification before lives are lost.
Malacañang later responded to Duterte’s remarks, saying students are not terrorists and emphasizing that victims and individuals involved in school-related violence are minors who need protection rather than being treated as security threats.
Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary Claire Castro also cited previous incidents of violence that occurred under past administrations, arguing that school-related attacks are part of a broader and long-standing problem.
Castro questioned whether intelligence measures could have prevented earlier incidents, including a 2019 shooting involving a 15-year-old student inside a school in Calamba, Laguna, as well as the 2016 bombing in Davao City and another attack targeting security personnel.
“Bakit hindi ito kaya nakita sa intelligence report?” Castro said.
