A threatened assault on a school in Tolosa, Leyte was headed off before it could be carried out, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla disclosed on Thursday, June 25, pointing to a tip relayed by a sitting senator as the break that allowed authorities to act.
The warning, according to Remulla, reached him directly the night before. “At 8 o’clock last night, Senator Bam Aquino called me up and gave me a tip that there was chatter in Tacloban that there was an impending mass shooting that was about to occur,” he said.
Remulla characterized the planned violence as either a shooting or a stabbing aimed at students.
He recited the message that had circulated as a signal of the looming attack: “Hello, send this to your friends. Yo, from Tolosa, prepare yourselves, especially you as you owe me. Get ready. I will disrupt the school. You won’t know me, but you will recognize me. There’s no time, no day. Be prepared for whoever gets shot or stabbed. We don’t care, good luck to you at Tolosa Leyte National High School.”
Operatives from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group ran down the source of the threat, Remulla said, and identified the person behind it as a student enrolled at Tolosa National High School.
