TACLOBAN CITY, LEYTE, Philippines: The parents of 14-year-old Ayessha Nicole Dazo, one of the three students killed in the June 22 shooting at San Jose National High School, are urging authorities to include the 14-year-old suspect in the criminal complaint, insisting that he should also be held accountable for the attack that also wounded at least 20 others.
Nico Dazo, Ayessha’s father, on Saturday (June 27) said his family could not accept that only the 15-year-old suspect had been charged. Both boys have been under the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and have been held at its local rehabilitation facility since their arrest.
“He should also be charged. Based on the accounts of her classmates, he was the one who shot and killed our daughter,” Dazo said, his voice breaking with emotion. “He killed our daughter as if she were a dog. Our daughter will never come back.”
“As it is, he is like being comforted. He should be jailed and not just placed under the DSWD. What he did is unacceptable,” he added.
The police have not commented on whether the 14-year-old, who was armed with a semiautomatic pistol, fired the fatal shots at the three students. In all, more than 30 shots were fired by the two students, according to investigators.
Criminal complaint
Earlier, the mothers of the two others who were killed—Chris Lorenz Fabian and Joyancee Separa—demanded that the 14-year-old be charged as well.
The two victims, both 15-year-old Grade 10 classmates, were shot inside their classroom. The alleged shooters were Grade 9 students.
A criminal complaint was filed a day after the shooting against the 15-year-old before the City Prosecutor’s Office for three counts of murder, three counts of frustrated murder and multiple counts of serious physical injuries.
No criminal complaint has been filed against the 14-year-old, who is below the minimum age of criminal responsibility under the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act. The boy will turn 15 on Aug. 25.
Dazo, a security guard, learned about the attack while on duty at Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport. He rushed to the school, where he met his wife, Ariet.
Together, they frantically searched for Ayessha, the eldest of their three daughters. They went from one hospital to another before finding her lying lifeless in an emergency room.
“I could not believe she was there, covered in blood. We did everything to protect her, yet this still happened—and inside her school,” Ariet, who works as a cashier at a fast-food outlet, said as she wept.
Emotional toll
On Saturday morning, the family received a package containing two bangles that Ayessha had ordered—one she intended as a gift for her best friend.
“I will just keep these as souvenirs,” Ariet said.
The couple was concerned over the emotional toll on their 11-year-old daughter, who remains traumatised by their loss.
“They were very close. She could not sleep, and there are times when she just stares blankly,” Ariet said.
The family of the 14-year-old suspect has since left their home in Barangay 85. Neighbours said they had relocated to Manila.
‘A lonely boy’
A neighbour, who identified herself only as a village officer, said the boy’s parents left the village on Thursday together with the teenager’s grandparents, who lived in a house beside the family’s residence.
“What we have learned is that they were going to Manila,” the village officer said, adding that the family had relatives living there. The boy’s mother is unemployed and his father has no permanent source of income, according to the village officer.
She said the 14-year-old, the eldest of three siblings, rarely mingled with other young people in the community.
He appeared to be “a lonely boy” who frequently witnessed heated arguments between his parents that sometimes turned physical, the village officer said.
“His environment was not healthy. Perhaps that contributed to the way he acted,” she said. But she stressed that such circumstances “should never justify what he did to innocent students.”
A security guard at the school on the day of the shooting said he was surprised to learn that the 15-year-old student was a suspect. He said the boy was courteous and would salute whenever he passed through the school gate.
10 still in hospital
He recalled that the teenager entered the campus carrying a sling bag on the morning of the attack.
Following the tragedy, Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez ordered the repair of the section of the school’s perimeter fence where the 14-year-old allegedly had escaped before he was apprehended by the police.
Roberto Yepes, an engineer supervising the repair work for the City Engineering Office, said it is expected to be completed within two weeks. The existing two-metre concrete fence will be raised to nearly double its height and topped with barbed wire.
“It will be high enough so students can no longer climb over it,” Yepes said.
The Department of Education (DepEd) on Saturday said that one of the students wounded during the attack was still under intensive care and 11 others, including three who underwent surgery, were recovering.
Two of the 12 students who were in hospital care have been discharged.
“Based on the latest update, most of our learners who remain hospitalised are in stable condition and are showing positive signs of improvement,” the DepEd said in a statement.
It said that the student in the intensive care unit of a hospital, which it did not identify, was conscious, coherent and on a soft diet. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
