At least three people were killed and eight injured in a shooting at a high school in the southern Philippines, police and local officials say.
The incident occurred on Friday afternoon at Banga National High School in Banga, South Cotabato.
All classes were suspended in the municipality of Banga, according to the local disaster risk reduction and management office.
The gunman was aged 16 and is among those dead, according to Banga’s mayor Albert Palencia. He said that of those injured, four were in critical condition. All the victims were students aged 14 to 17, he told the Reuters news agency.
The department of education said it was deeply concerned over the reported shooting.
“Our immediate priority is the safety and well-being of our learners, teachers, and school personnel,” the department said.
Officials urged people to not share unverified information and said they were prepared to provide first aid and mental health support to those affected.
Mr Palencia told Reuters the shooter had informed his friends of his plan to carry out the shooting beforehand.
"The suspect supposedly sat beside his friends and told them to ‘go home because after lunch, I will be executing my plan’. His friends laughed because the shooter was a known joker," Mr Palencia said.
“After lunch, he started shooting students. He hit 10 students before killing himself.”
Mr Palencia said the suspect used a 9-mm pistol belonging to his father, a department of education employee, after breaking into a vault where the firearm had been stored and bringing it to school. Palencia said the teenager carried two magazines for the weapon and reloaded after emptying the first one before shooting himself.
The mayor described the suspect as an intelligent student and active in taekwondo, adding there was no indication he had been bullied.
Authorities are also examining the role of online communities in the attack. Mr Palencia, citing information from police, said investigators found the suspect had posted in an online "true crime" community and were trying to determine the nature of the online group.
School shootings were previously rare in the Philippines. But the incident follows two shootings since June at schools in the south of the country.
An attack at a high school in Tacloban City left three students dead and about 20 others wounded. A Senate inquiry into that shooting also examined the role of the so-called True Crime Community, which cybercrime officials described as an online network of young people who share and consume violent extremist content.
Another student last month live-streamed himself shooting and killing a student in a classroom in Zamboanga before taking his own life.
It also comes after a high-profile incident in Thailand in August, where a student went on a shooting rampage at a school on the outskirts of the capital, Bangkok.
The Philippines has relatively strict gun ownership regulations, including background checks and psychological evaluation requirements, although illegal firearms remain in circulation.
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