DepEd welcomes first group of counselors hired after string of campus shootings
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education swore in some 300 newly hired school counselor associates and guidance counselors in Metro Manila on Thursday, October 15.
Education Secretary Sonny Angara led the oath-taking of 339 school counselor associates at the DepEd central office in Pasig City. All are assigned to the National Capital Region.
The department has been in a time crunch to fill 10,000 new school counselor associate posts following a string of deadly campus shootings since June, all of which took place outside Metro Manila.
Before this, school shootings were considered rare in the Philippines, even as gun violence is not. Two of the three recent shooting incidents in schools were a result of minors gaining access to service-issued firearms.
The presence of mental health workers in schools is a "gap in our department," Angara told reporters in Filipino, crediting Undersecretary Wilfred Cabral, who heads the agency's human resources, for speeding up school counselor associates' recruitment.
"The president's order was: as soon as we can hire, we hire," Angara said. "This is just NCR, and it's already more than 300. We have a few thousand more on the way."
Cabral said 5,404 of the 10,000 school counselor associate posts had been filled, 4,423 were under assessment and 312 remained open for applications across the regions.
The new hires are now officially DepEd employees and are expected to report to schools "as soon as possible," Angara said. They hold plantilla, or permanent, positions at Salary Grade 11, with a basic monthly pay of about P31,000.
Angara said the associates would serve as "advisers" to students, watching for those who appear depressed, lost or disconnected from their school community, and stepping in to help.
Their role extends beyond career guidance to students' personal struggles and "all aspects" of their lives, the DepEd secretary said.
The associate post is new to DepEd, a position created under Republic Act 12080 or the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-being Promotion Act.
The law, signed in 2024, seeks to plug the long-standing shortage of registered guidance counselors in schools.
Difficulties hiring licensed counselors have been attributed to several factors, including the requirement that they hold a master's degree and the limited options for career progression. Based on a study by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2), the country produces only about 300 registered guidance counseling graduates a year.
As a result, fewer than 1,000 registered guidance counselors serve in DepEd, which runs more than 45,000 schools.
Meanwhile, associates need only a bachelor's degree in guidance and counseling or psychology, or a related degree with at least 18 units in those fields, plus 200 hours of supervised practicum.
Calls for DepEd to provide more mental health services in schools gained fresh urgency after three school shootings this year.
In June, three students were killed in a shooting at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City, and both suspects, students of the school, were arrested.
In August, a shooting at Ateneo de Zamboanga University's junior high school left two dead, including the gunman.
On September 18, a minor opened fire at Banga National High School in South Cotabato, leaving at least three dead, among them the shooter.
A Senate inquiry has linked the Tacloban attack to "764", an international online network accused of radicalizing children
Of the 5,000 guidance counselor posts created in 2020, only about 1,000 were filled, Cabral said in August.
The Department of Budget and Management authorized the creation of 10,000 school counselor associate positions on July 15. DepEd later cut the hiring process from three to four months to about 30 days.
The department has committed to lawmakers to fill the positions by December.
Even then, DepEd will fall far short of its needs, as Angara has confirmed the department needs a whopping 48,000 associates, one for every school, but its 2026 budget funds only 10,000.
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