The Last Things Ayessa Left Behind

Posted on June 28, 2026 at 8:13 am

TACLOBAN CITY — The package arrived on a rainy Saturday morning.

It was addressed to 14-year-old Ayessa Nicole Dazo.

Inside the small black parcel was a bracelet she had ordered online, something the Grade 9 student had been excited to receive. Ayessa, her family said, loved dressing up and buying simple accessories. She never got the chance to wear this one.

The package arrived five days after she was killed in the shooting at San Jose National High School.

It has not been opened.

At her wake, the parcel rests on a chair beside her maroon school bag and the body towel she used before leaving for school that Monday morning. They were placed there by her family, who have not found the heart to put them away.

Around the house, little has changed since June 22.

Her notebooks are still where she left them. Her school things remain untouched. Even her room has been left as it was, as if she had simply gone to school and was expected to come home later that day.

Her father, Nico Dazo, still remembers that morning.

He left for work as a security guard while Ayessa prepared for school. There was nothing unusual about the day. She picked up the same maroon bag that now sits beside her coffin and headed to class.

A few hours later, Nico learned there had been a shooting at San Jose National High School.

He rushed to the campus, abandoning his vehicle when traffic came to a standstill. As he neared the school gate, a student approached him.

His daughter had been shot.

Teachers and volunteers had carried Ayessa into the back of a private pickup truck and rushed her to the hospital.

She was declared dead on arrival.

She was 14.

Since then, the house has grown quiet.

The eldest of three siblings, Ayessa was the child who checked on her younger brother and sister, hugged her parents before leaving home, and filled the house with stories about school.

Now, it is the things she left behind that catch her family’s attention.

The unopened bracelet.

The school bag she carried that morning.

The notebooks she will never finish.

The towel she used before walking out the door for the last time.

Nico said his daughter often talked about her dreams. She wanted to become a police officer. She also hoped to own a big bike someday after watching motorcycle vloggers online.

More than anything, she wanted to help her parents.

He would remind her not to think about supporting the family yet.

“Kahit hindi mo na kami tulungan. Basta ikaw, makapagtapos,” he would tell her.

But Ayessa always answered that she wanted to give them a better life.

At the wake, visitors often stop when they notice the unopened parcel beside her coffin.

It is just a bracelet, one of countless packages delivered every day.

For the Dazo family, it has become a painful reminder of plans that will never be fulfilled.

Ayessa will never open the parcel that arrived in her name.

She will never sling her maroon bag over her shoulder on another school morning.

The pages of her notebooks will remain blank.

Outside their home, conversations have shifted to school security, investigations, and the legal case against the minors accused in the shooting.

Inside the Dazo household, those discussions feel far away.

The bracelet is still inside its box.

Her belongings are still where she left them.

For now, that is how her family chooses to remember her, not only through the tragedy that took her life, but through the ordinary things that still make it feel as though she might walk through the door at any moment.

Photo by: Jazmin Bonifacio | Vanguard