No student should walk alone

By Herman M. Lagon

Every teacher knows the student. The one who suddenly becomes unusually quiet. The one who stops joining classmates during recess. The one whose grades begin slipping for reasons that no quiz or assignment can explain.

Sometimes that student eventually walks into the Guidance Office. Sometimes they never make it to the Guidance Office. Many students spend weeks, even months, believing they should carry everything on their own.

That is why the government’s move to create thousands of School Counselor Associate positions deserves recognition. Schools need more caring adults. The PGCA only adds one important reminder: while we widen access, we must also protect the quality of care students receive.

They complete each other.

Unfortunately, the conversation online has begun sounding like schools must choose between School Counselor Associates and Registered Guidance Counselors. They do not.

That debate reminds me of asking whether a hospital needs nurses or doctors. The answer, of course, is both.

School Counselor Associates have an important role under Republic Act No. 12080. They can help with mental health promotion, referrals, learner profiling, psychological first aid, and many other services that make schools more responsive to students’ needs.

Registered Guidance Counselors, meanwhile, continue to perform work that requires years of graduate preparation, supervised training, ethical accountability, and professional licensure under Republic Act No. 9258.

That difference is not about protecting a profession. It is about protecting a student.

There is a world of difference between comforting someone after a difficult day and helping a learner disclose years of abuse, severe depression, or thoughts of suicide. One calls for compassion. The other requires compassion and professional competence.

Reading the PGCA position paper carefully, I found something that many social media discussions have overlooked.

The association is not rejecting School Counselor Associates. The PGCA agrees that schools need more people looking after students. But it also reminds us that recognizing someone needs help is not the same as providing counseling.

The first opens the conversation. The second helps begin healing.

Screening is not counseling. Referral is not therapy. A thermometer tells us someone has a fever. It cannot treat the illness.

Perhaps that is the simplest way to understand what the PGCA is trying to say.

I understand that concern not only as someone who has worked with teachers and students for years but also as the Registered Guidance Counselor of a university campus. Some days are spent helping students navigate career choices. Other days involve responding to crises no young person should ever have to face alone. Those experiences have taught me that compassion opens the conversation, but competence helps carry it forward.

I also cannot help thinking about teachers. Many already do far more than what their job descriptions require. They become listeners during lunch breaks. Comforters after class. The adult a student quietly waits for after everyone else has gone home. They do these things because they care.

But caring should never mean carrying responsibilities that belong to another profession. We would never expect an English teacher to perform surgery because there is no doctor nearby. Neither should we expect teachers—or guidance designates—to carry counseling responsibilities that require specialized preparation simply because licensed counselors remain too few.

Compassion deserves support. Not substitution.

Perhaps the biggest challenge, however, is not the shortage of counselors. It is the hesitation to ask for one.

Many Filipino families still whisper about counseling as though seeking help were something embarrassing. Some worry about being judged. Others fear labels that should never have existed in the first place.

That culture has to change.

School Counselor Associates can help make mental health conversations more ordinary. They can become the familiar faces who remind students that asking for help is not a sign of weakness.

But when that student finally says, “Sir… Ma’am… I don’t think I’m okay anymore…” there should be a Registered Guidance Counselor waiting on the other side. Otherwise, we have built a bridge that leads nowhere.

This conversation is not really about positions. It is about children.

The EDCOM II report reminds us that quality education is more than classrooms and curriculum. Students also need psychosocial support if they are to learn well. In one of our own studies among public secondary school learners in Iloilo City, many students expressed the same hope in different ways: they wanted someone in school they could trust when life became overwhelming.

That hope deserves more than good intentions.

Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question. The question is not whether schools need School Counselor Associates or Registered Guidance Counselors.  The question is whether every learner who finally says, “I need help,” will find the right person waiting.

Because students do not care about plantilla items. They do not think about qualification standards. They simply hope that when their world begins falling apart, someone notices. Someone listens. And someone knows what to do next.

That is why Republic Act No. 12080 and Republic Act No. 9258 should never compete with each other. One widens the circle of care. The other protects its quality. And our learners deserve both.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.