Why DepEd’s Push for More Guidance Counselors Could Be a Win for Every Filipino Family

As schools strengthen their mental health programs, parents may soon see more guidance counselors helping students navigate bullying, stress, emotional well-being, and everyday challenges.

Children spend nearly half of their waking hours in school. While classrooms are where they learn math, science, and language, they’re also where they build friendships, experience setbacks, and sometimes face bullying, anxiety, or emotional struggles.

Recognizing these growing concerns, the Department of Education (DepEd) is stepping up efforts to hire more guidance counselors in public schools as part of its broader strategy to address school violence, bullying, and student mental health. The move follows calls to strengthen learner protection and provide students with trusted adults they can turn to before problems escalate.

For parents, it’s a welcome reminder that supporting a child’s education also means supporting their emotional well-being.

What Are Guidance Counselors?

Guidance counselors do much more than help students map out careers.

They are often the first trained professionals to notice when a child is struggling. They listen, help ease stress, teach healthy coping skills, spot warning signs early, and work with teachers and parents to keep schools safer. They also step in when students face bullying, grief, family conflict, behavior issues, or mental health concerns that need immediate support.

In the Philippines, becoming a guidance counselor is not a quick path.

Republic Act No. 9258, or the Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004, sets the professional standards for the field, while PRC rules and licensure requirements determine who can practice. In general, the role calls for a relevant bachelor’s degree, graduate studies in guidance and counseling or a related field, and a valid license from the Professional Regulation Commission.

Republic Act No. 10912, or the Continuing Professional Development Act of 2016, also requires licensed professionals to keep learning through CPD units for license renewal. Beyond the credentials, guidance counselors need empathy, discretion, patience, and the ability to handle sensitive situations with children, families, and school staff.

That is why the shortage in public schools matters. Thousands of vacant posts and tough hiring requirements have made these positions hard to fill, even as DepEd pushes to expand school-based mental health services.

For parents, the message is simple: guidance counselors are not a substitute for family. They are an added layer of support, making sure children have a safe, trained adult to turn to when life at school gets heavy.

Guidance Counselors can only open the door

While guidance counselors cannot prevent every challenge, having trained mental health professionals on campus gives children another layer of support when they need it most.

What also stops many from aspiring to become guidance counselors is the stigma and the supposed lack of financial stability. Because many are not open to mental health and often quote the “weakness” of the new generation, many aspiring guidance counselors find themselves discouraged. That kind of thinking can also come from the home, where hiya or shame is the solution to dealing with it—a very “out of sight, out of mind” kind of approach.

Combined with open communication at home and strong partnerships between families and schools, DepEd’s renewed investment in guidance services represents an important step toward making schools not only places of learning, but places where children feel seen, heard, and safe.

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