40 students undergoing counseling for online threat offenses

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Psychologists from the education and social welfare departments in Region 12 are cooperating in counseling 40 students apprehended for online threats to attack schools in separate operations in Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato provinces in the past 10 days.

South Cotabato Gov. Reynaldo Tamayo Jr. told reporters on Wednesday that 20 of the 40 students tagged in threatening to attack classmates or harm teachers inside school campuses are from different towns in their province.

Counselors from units of the Police Regional Office 12 are helping rehabilitate them, according to Tamayo.

Up to 20 other students in different towns in Sultan Kudarat are also being counseled now after they had threatened to attack classmates and mentors in different schools in the province.

Tamayo, presiding chairperson of the multi-sector Regional Peace and Order Council 12, covering four cities and four provinces in Region 12, said the 40 elementary pupils and high school students are being treated as children needing psychological interventions, not as typical law offenders.

“All social, psychological interventions are being done for them to heal. We want them to become responsible adults,” Tamayo said.

Three students were killed while six others were wounded on September 18 in a shooting rampage by a student on the campus of the Banga National High School in Banga town in South Cotabato.

One of the three fatalities in the incident is the attacker, who shot himself in the head after attacking schoolmates inside a classroom in their campus.