A high school sophomore in Taguig City brought a “homemade gun” to school reportedly to defend himself against a bully, but ended up accidentally shooting his own female cousin on the campus.
The incident on Thursday involving the minors was only recorded in the police blotter as the victim’s family did not press charges.
Officials of Ricardo Papa High School also have yet to decide on the sanctions to be imposed on the student, according to George Tizon, Taguig-Pateros administrator of the Department of Education (DepEd).
In an interview on Friday, Tizon said the 14-year-old student was showing off the improvised gun or “sumpak” during recess when it accidentally went off and hit his cousin, a 13-year-old freshman in the same school.
The girl was rushed to Taguig-Pateros District Hospital and was reported to be in stable condition on Friday.
An investigation by school officials revealed that the boy brought the gun to school for “self-defense” against a bully he had encountered outside campus, Tizon said.
“He apparently got it from an older relative. He had no intention of using it inside the school. It just so happened he had an enemy outside,” the DepEd official said.
Tizon said the DepEd would conduct its own investigation to see if there was negligence on the part of the school security since the boy was able to enter the campus with a deadly weapon.
He called the shooting “an isolated incident” but said it lent urgency to a P10-million DepEd project that would install closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) in Taguig’s 34 public elementary and high schools.
The project, whose budget was prepared last year, was intended to deter bullying on the campuses, he said.