THE Department of Education said yesterday it will prioritize the establishment of a Mental Health and Well-Being Office (MHWO) in schools where bullying cases are on the rise.
DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara announced this after he signed the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act.
“Through the IRR, the DepEd will prioritize the establishment of MHWO in high-burden areas. The office will be led by a school’s division counselor,” he said.
“The MHWO is a direct answer to one of our Five-Point Agenda prioritizing learner’s well-being and creating an enabling learning environment,” he added.
Angara also said the department will prioritize the deployment of one school counselor or counselor associate in large schools such as Rizal High School in Pasig City, where last year school authorities recorded a total of 382 bullying cases, 48 of them resulting in physical injuries.
The sheer scale of the bullying incidents in Rizal High School is compounded by the fact that it has only one guidance counselor to cater to a student population of 12,584.
“The goal is to build Care Centers and support the Department’s mental health program, taking some pressure off school leaders like Principal Santos,” Angara said, referring to Rizal High School principal Richard Santos.
He said his office is also working with the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM2) to “review and update” the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013 to make it “more responsive to current school realities and ensure more effective enforcement” of the law.
Earlier, EDCOM 2 said 10,018 public schools in the country have no policy to combat bullying despite the Anti-Bullying Act.
It also cited data from the Programme for International Students Assessments (PISA) in 2022 showing that 43 percent of girls and 53 percent of boys in the Philippines reported they were victims of bullying at least a few times a month, a rate significantly higher than the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) averages of 20 percent for girls and 21 percent for boys.
Additionally, EDCOM said the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) 2019 revealed that 63.2 percent of Grade 5 students in the Philippines encounter bullying at least once a month.
Last year, EDCOM said it would take around 14 years for DepEd to fill all vacant guidance counselor positions in public schools due to the limited number of graduates from master’s degree programs in guidance and counseling every year.
The body, which is tasked with finding solutions to the problems bedeviling the country’s public school system, said that there are only 300 who graduate with the required master’s degree in guidance and counselling every year.
As of March 2024, there are 4,460 vacancies for guidance counselor positions that DepEd has yet to fill.
Region IV-B (Mimaropa) and Region 8 (Eastern Visayas have had no graduates in the Masters and Guidance and Counseling programs since 2018.
Earlier, Angara said the DepEd plans to propose amending Republic Act 9258 or the Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004 to remove the master’s degree requirement for guidance counselors to fill the vacant positions.
To address the problem of underreporting of bullying cases, Angara said DepEd is integrating anti-bullying and rights-based education into the curriculum and will include the anti-bullying policy and code of conduct in the learner’s handbook.
“Social and behavioral change materials will also be distributed nationwide to reinforce awareness and advocacy against bullying,” he said, adding that the DepEd’s Learners Rights and Protection Division (LRPD) is also working to enhance the intervention mechanism to ensure faster case resolution and better support systems for students who are victims of bullying.
From November 2022 to February 2025, the LRPD recorded 522 bullying cases nationwide through its TeleSafe Contact Center Helpline.
Angara said physical altercation is the most common form of conflict or bullying among students.
“We understand that the numbers we currently have don’t fully capture what’s actually happening on the ground. That’s why the Department is not just responding to reports we receive but also working to put prevention measures in place. Our goal is not just to address these incidents but to instill positive behavior among our children,” he added.
