A 14-year-old gunman who carried out the deadly June 22 attack at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City turned his weapon on a classmate he had once counted as his closest friend, according to testimony delivered Wednesday before a Senate panel.
The wounded student, Gerric Bituin, had shared a Grade 8 classroom with the shooter identified only as alias Nash. Gerric’s older sister, Janica, described the pair’s history to the Senate committee on women investigating the killings. “In fact, he and Nash were friends — the suspects, were his classmates when they were in Grade 8. But Nash was his best friend at the time,” she said. She recalled that her brother had always found Nash to be kind and approachable.
Nash and a 15-year-old accomplice known as alias Rod killed three students and injured others during the assault. Both suspects are minors.
According to Janica, Gerric first noticed something amiss during that morning’s flag ceremony, where Nash appeared searching for someone. “Gerric said he became suspicious at the time because Nash seemed to be in a different mood than usual,” she said.
The warning signs sharpened once class began. A distant noise resembling an explosion drew little concern at first, Janica recounted, but the sound of gunfire grew nearer. Students soon scattered, shouting that an armed person was on the grounds. Looking out through a classroom window, Gerric spotted both suspects — Nash masked and holding a firearm.
“He said Nash was wearing a mask and was the only one he saw carrying a gun. After that, the two suspects reportedly went to the classroom across the hall. Their teacher then instructed Gerric and his classmates to move to another spot,” Janica told the panel. Neither Gerric nor his classmates realized Nash had circled to the rear of their room. “As Gerric was moving to another spot, they did not realize that Nash was already at the back of their classroom. Just as Gerric was about to stand up, he was shot. He was shot while his back was turned,” she said.
A second survivor, Kaye Lapidario, was struck after she rose to seal off her classroom from the gunmen. Her father, Rolando, told the committee that she moved the moment shots erupted in the room across the corridor. “After the gunshots rang out in the classroom across the hall, the two suspects walked toward their classroom. Kaye then quickly shut the door, but she was shot immediately afterward,” he said.
Rolando credited that split-second decision with sparing others in the room. “She was the only one who was shot because she was trying to protect her classmates. She closed the classroom door. They said that if she had not closed it, many more of them would have been shot,” he said. His daughter, he added, recognized the attackers only by sight.
Bleeding from her wound, Kaye reached for her phone and messaged her father, who was working at the farm at the time, to tell him what had happened.
