Two students dead in Philippines school shooting, including gunman

Philippine police gather at the scene of the school shooting in Zamboanga in the southern Philippines. Picture: Roel Parreno / AFP via Getty Images).

Two students were killed in a shooting at a high school in the southern Philippines on Tuesday, one of them the gunman.

Officials said the situation is now under control, ​and comes as the second such incident] in the country in less than two months.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos ​Jr ordered law enforcement agencies to investigate and to determine measures to be ⁠taken to prevent violence in schools.

"Our schools are where we entrust our children to learn, to grow ​and to dream about the lives ahead of them. They must also be among the safest places ​in our country," Marcos said in a statement.

The shooting took place at a school attached to the privately-run Ateneo de Zamboanga University in the city of Zamboanga, where the gunman brought a pistol and a rifle onto the school ​campus and fired at students inside the classroom, according to a preliminary police report.

Video aired by ​GMA News, with images blurred, showed chaotic scenes inside a classroom with students ducking for cover as several gunshots ‌rang out.

The ⁠victim was a male grade 10 student, police said. The gunman, a grade 9 student, killed himself, police said.

Two others were wounded.

The shooting followed an attack in June at a public high school in Tacloban City in the central Philippines in which at least three students were killed and about 20 others injured when two ​of their schoolmates opened ​fire on campus.

School shootings ⁠are rare in the Philippines, which has relatively strict gun ownership regulations, including background checks and psychological evaluation requirements, although illegal firearms remain in circulation.

News ​channel ANC showed footage of students and parents gathering outside the school gates ​with some ⁠armed police and soldiers present. Crime scene investigators were seen arriving at the school.

The school is a five-storey building on an 8-hectare (19.8 acre) site that houses the university's grade school and junior high school students, according ⁠to ​its website.

The incident came less than 10 days after a ​high-profile incident in Thailand, where a student went on a shooting rampage at a school on the outskirts of the capital Bangkok.

- Reuters