Rep. Angelica Natasha Co ( BHW Partylist) a psychology graduate and chair of the House committee on children's welfare, lamented the poor implementation of mental health programs in the country.
In a hearing, she cited the frustration, disappointment, alarm, and lamentations made for the palpable tensions during the hearing about suicides among the Filipino youth. "We are disappointed by the poor implementation of the National Mental Health Act and other laws, which, if they had been implemented, could have prevented many of the suicides."
We want to see more trained peer counselors, especially those who are student leaders, the academic and non-academic student organizations. Parents' organizations must be involved in the training of parents, she said.
She cited the need for inter-agency coordination and monitoring and follow-up on all the cases of suicides, bullying, and violence involving students and teachers.
There must be synergy among all the implementing agencies, one hotline that we can remember instead of the many hotlines per agency and one concrete program that we can all follow that includes all barangays.
We will work with the House Committee on Civil Service and Professional Regulation to address the shortage of guidance counselors. My suggestion is to have additional categories of guidance counselors—in the same way, that the nursing and engineering professions have technicians, specialists, and aides.
We will ask the DOH to include mental health training for barangay health workers. This would be one quick way to swiftly add more people who can be first responders in communities and schools.
We will invite the national council in charge of implementing the National Mental Health Law, the principals, guidance counselors, DSWD social workers, and police officers who handled actual suicide cases.
We will also invite the Commission on Higher Education, state universities and colleges with teacher education programs, the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges, and the COCOPEA, the national federation of private schools.
We agree on raising the salary grades of licensed guidance counselors when they work at the DepEd. We need guidance counselors at the schools, not at the division offices and regional offices.
I will file a school health bill that includes vital components on mental health and nutrition. This bill will not add to the burdens of teachers by giving them work on guidance and counseling.
In recent data provided by the Department of Education, among the 28 million student population, 404 students ended their lives; 2,147 learners had attempted to end their lives in the year 2021.1 roughly 775,962 learners sought guidance counseling from a guidance counselor, and this is based on 2021 data that is approximately 2.85 percent of the population. Of the 60,157 schools, there were only 16,557 guidance officers and 2,093 registered guidance counselors.
Additionally, in the 2015 national baseline study on violence against children conducted by UNICEF and the council for the welfare of children, 80% of Filipino children and youth aged 13-24 suffered abuse and violence in their homes, schools, and communities. 3 of 5 children experienced physical violence or what they refer to as corporal punishment. 3 in 5 children experienced psychological violence in the form of verbal abuse, public intimidation, and embarrassment, among others. 1 in 5 children experienced sexual abuse unfortunately committed by their trusted family members. Also, per data from the child adolescent outpatient unit of the National Center for Mental Health, from January 2022 to September 2022, about 1,615 children asked for a consultation. 559 in 2021 and 444 in 2020.
As regards cases of violence in schools, briefly, on November 29, 2022, three (3) male victims (2 minors) were stabbed while waiting in front of the school at Misamis road, Brgy. Bagong Pag-Asa, Quezon City, upon order from a female grade 8 student of San Francisco high school. The minor victims were a 16-year-old student from San Francisco High School, his 18-yr old brother, and their 20-year-old cousin. The 16-year-old male is a classmate of a grade 8 female student. The female grade 8 student allegedly ordered the minor suspects to stab the victims. On December 5, 2022, a fighting incident involving grade 9 students transpired in the boys' comfort room at the Colegio San Agustin, Makati City.
On January 20, 2023, a 15-year-old boy stabbed his classmate to death along the hallway of Culiat high school building in Quezon City. The suspect, a grade 7 student, approached his classmate, a 13-year-old boy, and stabbed the victim with a knife. On January 26, 2023, a 12-year-old son of a policeman died after he shot himself when he fired the service gun of his father while playing with it inside the toilet of a school in Bulacan.
As regards suicide, on January 23, 2023, a senior high school student died after falling from the ninth (9th) floor of a building inside the university of the east Caloocan city campus. A witness recovered a handwritten suicide note. Also, recently, on February 9, 2023, a 17-year-old student died after he fell from a school building at San Beda College Alabang, Muntinlupa. I bet most suicide cases go largely unreported due to the stigma or fear of people with suicidal tendencies being judged.