‘Outstanding’ teacher shot in front of her pupils in classroom

By JIGGER J. JERUSALEM,
Correspondent

A PUBLIC school teacher survived an attempt on her life inside the campus at Dalit Elementary School in Valencia City Tuesday morning. She was shot in front of her students inside a classroom.

A police report said four unidentified armed men on two motorcycles entered the school in Sitio Dalit, Barangay Lumbayao, where Zhydee Cabañelez, 32, has been teaching, and shot her several times while she was inside her classroom.

Lt. Col. Surki Sereñas, Valencia city police chief, said Cabañelez was in her classroom about to start her class when the shooting happened.
Aside from Cabañelez, her husband Ramil, 34, along with seven pupils, were inside the classroom at the time, he said.
The Dalit Elementary School is a small learning facility located about 20 kilometers from the city proper and can only accessible by a raft or a pump boat to get to the other side of the Pulangi River.

After the river crossing, one has to walk or ride a horse for 30 minutes to reach the area, which is reported to be infested with New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.

Cabañelez is a multi-grade teacher and a 2017 Outstanding Teacher awardee in her Barangay in Sinabuagan, Valencia, while her husband is a teacher-in-charge.

“Both Zhydee and Ramil were inside the classroom when the shooting started. Zhydee was attending to something while Ramil was looking for some files,” Sereñas said.

“The attackers introduced themselves as from the ‘bukid’ (mountain),” Sereñas noted.

He said the gunmen approached Cabañelez and asked where her husband was, and when they saw him one of the attackers started shooting at him, but he managed to duck and took cover under a table.

After firing at Ramil, the assailant then shot at Cabañelez hitting her foot twice and her shoulder twice.

When she fell down, the suspects then exited the classroom.

“They have the opportunity to finish Zhydee off and shot Ramil, but instead they left,” Sereñas said, adding that the victim is now in stable condition.

He said the schools division superintendent of Valencia, Dr. Victoria Gazo, has already requested the Department of Social Welfare and Development to hold a debriefing session for the pupils who witnessed the shooting.

Sereñas said they are also verifying the report that Cabañelez’s father Zaldy is a member of the NPA’s Guerrilla Front 6 in the North Central Mindanao Regional Command based in Bukidnon and has been alleged as collecting so-called “revolutionary tax” from quarry owners in the area.

He said they are investigating if the shooting was related to Cabañelez’s father’s connection to the Communist revolutionary movement.