Filipino bishop seeks more school counselors to fight bullying

Data from Education Department shows one counselor for every 6,733 school students

A Catholic bishop has urged lawmakers in the Philippines to promptly pass a proposed law that could attract more guidance counselors in schools to tackle the high rate of student bullying.

Bishop Rex Alarcon of Daet, chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Youth Commission, lamented that amid a lack of guidance counselors bullying in schools has become a rising menace.

“Almost 18 million students have been bullied in the country and this is because of the lack of guidance counselors to give advice to bullies and their victims… This could have been prevented by proper guidance,” Bishop Alarcon told UCA News on Feb. 20.

The prelate referred to a recent statement by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Feb. 12 when he claimed, citing data from the Child Protection Network Foundation, that about 17.5 million students were victims of bullying. The survey carried out in January covered 654 schools.

Senator Gatchalian proposed strengthening the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act, first tabled in parliament in 2020, to offer better remuneration and facilities for guidance counselors.

The bill seeks to strengthen the promotion and delivery of mental health services amid the rising cases of mental health issues among learners and school personnel, the Manila Bulletin newspaper reported on Jan. 31.

Senator Gatchalian said that the ratio between students and guidance counselors is disproportionate.

“The Department of Education only hires one guidance counselor for every 500 students which means that presently, the Philippines had only 4,069 guidance counselors as of June 2022 for more than 27 million students,” the lawmaker told reporters, citing a Philippine Information News Agency report.

Data from the Department of Education shows the country has 27.4 million elementary and high school students, meaning one counselor for every 6,733 students.

“The ratio is absurd. No counselor would like to work in schools because each one has to counsel at least 6,000 students. In fact, many of our students have graduated without even seeing or meeting their guidance counselors,” the lawmaker added.

Bishop Alarcon said the commission aims to come up with a recommendation to increase the pay to get more guidance counselors, especially in Catholic private schools.

“Surely, we need them … the pandemic did not stop bullying, for example. In fact, more children need psychological and mental support because they had not socialized with their peers in schools … passing a law to address this issue is also very important,” the prelate added.

He said a way to address the “problematic ratio” was to increase the salaries of guidance counselors working in schools.

“We need to make their work enticing and attractive. Part of it, of course, is to make sure they get competitive salaries,” the bishop told UCA News.

Jonalyn Bigay, a guidance counselor at Father Angelico Lipani School in Metro Manila said counselors like her play a vital role in students’ wellbeing.

“We work to maximize our students’ potential, the promotion of understanding and care inside the classroom. As professionals, we are called to take care of the holistic wellbeing of every child, to listen to their success as well as failures, in and out of the classroom” Bigay told UCA News.

At present, a guidance counselor gets a monthly salary of about 25,000 pesos (US$500) depending on experience, according to Rita Mangahas, a counselor at Saint Louise de Marillac College in Sorsogon, in the country’s Bicol region.

Entry-level counselors in private schools get 19,000 pesos per month, she said.

Mangahas, 38, said she began working as a counselor ten years ago her salary was 15,000 pesos, which has almost doubled by now.

“That time, I had to work more than eight hours to give counseling to students,” Mangahas told UCA News.

She says she is doing the same job, but she does not complain about payment anymore.

“I do not want to complain because I have two children studying in the same school and they get discounts on their tuition and other fees,” Mangahas said.

Emigration is also seen as a cause of the lack of guidance counselors in schools.

The Department of Labor reported in 2021 that 3,829 registered guidance counselors left the country from 2019-2022 to work abroad, mostly in schools in Australia and Canada.

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