Why 15-year-old was charged with murder

The Revised Penal Code defines murder via certain elements:

“Article 248. Murder. Any person who … shall kill another, shall be guilty of murder and shall be punished by reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death, if committed with any of the following attendant circumstances:

“(1) With treachery, taking advantage of superior strength, with the aid of armed men, or employing means to weaken the defense or of means or persons to insure or afford impunity;

“(2) In consideration of a price, reward or promise;

“(3) By means of inundation, fire, poison, explosion, shipwreck, stranding of a vessel, derailment or assault upon a street car or locomotive, fall of an airship, by means of motor vehicles, or with the use of any other means involving great waste and ruin;

“(4) On occasion of any of the calamities enumerated in the preceding paragraph, or of an earthquake, eruption of a volcano, destructive cyclone, epidemic, or any other public calamity;

“(5) With evident premeditation;

“(6) With cruelty, by deliberately and inhumanly augmenting the suffering of the victim, or outraging or scoffing at his person or corpse.”

Police charged 15-year-old “Rod” Wednesday with three counts of murder, three counts of frustrated murder and several counts of physical injuries. This was for the fatal shooting of three schoolmates, emergency surgery of three more, plus serious injuries to 20 others, including teachers, Monday at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City.

Companion “Nash,” 14, wasn’t criminally charged. Social workers and psychiatrists are evaluating him for long-term rehabilitation. That’s under the 2006 Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act.

Police reconstructed the events. Ninth grade classmates Rod and Nash planned their attack. They supposedly had online exchanges setting it for Monday. They sneaked firearms into campus: Rod a .38-caliber revolver and Nash a 9-mm pistol.

They attended the 7:30 a.m. flag raising in school attire. At around 8:30 they changed clothing in the male toilet. Rod put on a white t-shirt. Nash donned a black t-shirt with white lettering “KMFDM,” supposedly similar to that of one of the perpetrators of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado.

They strode back to their classroom then fired at will. Police found only one empty shell casing in Rod’s revolver, indicating that he fired only once. Strewn on the floor were 34 empty 9-mm shells, meaning Nash used up at least two magazines.

One of the fatalities was Chris Lorenz Fabian. After initially ducking for cover, he was videoed getting up and trying to pull the classroom door shut. From the other side Nash purportedly kept it open while firing. Chris Lorenz was hit in the heart and lung. Breathing his last, he whispered to classmates and teachers to run for their lives.

Rod mixed with the panicked crowd, and put an arm around a smaller girl. A fireman turned him over to the responding cops. “Makukulong ba ko, makukulong ba ko?” Rod repeatedly cried. At 11 a.m. a tricycle driver-neighbor picked up Nash who was hiding at home and took him to the police station.

Sen. Kiko Pangilinan said the 15-year-old can be criminally charged under the Juvenile Justice Law that he authored. “They cannot simply be released even if minors. They must go through the process prescribed by law. A child aged 15 years old or below at the time of the crime is exempt from criminal liability, but is still mandated to be subjected to an intervention program.”

Same with suspects above 15 but below 18, “unless he/she acted with discernment, in which case such child shall be subjected to the appropriate proceedings in accordance with this Act.”

Radio-TV interviews with anguished Tacloban students, teachers and parents were heartrending. The mother of a girl in hospital ICU kept blaming herself for advising the daughter to attend school although feverish that morning. Another mother wept that she was waiting for her daughter outside the school gate, not knowing the girl was in death throes only meters away inside.

Chris Lorenz’s father was inconsolable despite avowals of his son’s heroism. A teacher of the two attackers and two of the fatalities had chills and couldn’t reenter the classroom till yesterday.

Despite counseling, they may not get over the tragedy. In the US, CBS News’ “60 Minutes” featured in 2024 the parents of some school children slain in campus shootings. Replayed last June 14, it showed them leaving the kids’ bedrooms as they were the day they died, with clothes still in hampers, beds unmade and desks littered with notes and stick-ons.

DepEd was caught unprepared by the rash of school violence. Last week, knife attacks panicked two schools in Cavite. Same with another in San Carlos City Tuesday. All DepEd could do was caution the public against speculations and to respect the privacy of minor offenders and victims.

There would be no speculating and misreporting if DepEd officials immediately come forward to discuss needed improvements in campus safety and security. Its silence shows incompetence.

Rich city halls can donate metal detectors at public school entrances. But DepEd is talking through its hat about hiring at least two security guards for each of 50,000 elementary and high schools. It can’t even fill in the shortage of 18,000 teachers archipelago-wide.

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