Peer facis, quiet campus heroes

By Herman M. Lagon

Sometimes the loneliest student in a classroom is also the happiest-looking one. The one who laughs the loudest during group work. The one who never misses a deadline. The one who keeps saying, “Okay lang ako.”

Until one day, someone notices that the laughter has become quieter. The seatmate who always arrives early now comes in late. The student who loved eating with friends suddenly prefers to sit alone. Nothing dramatic happens. Just small changes that are easy to miss—unless someone is paying attention.

That “someone” is often not a counselor. It is another student.

Long before anyone gathers enough courage to knock on the Guidance Office door, many stories begin with an ordinary conversation between classmates. A simple “Kamusta ka?” Sometimes an awkward silence. Sometimes just sitting together without saying much. Healing rarely announces itself. More often, it quietly enters through people who choose to stay when everyone else has already walked away.

I saw that unfold during the recent Pag-Amlig 2026, the Peer Facilitators Training Workshop of the ISUFST Dumangas Campus Guidance Office. Twenty-five college students volunteered to become peer facilitators. No one promised them awards. No additional academic credit waited at the end of the training. They came because they wanted to become the kind of people they themselves would have needed during difficult days.

Over two days, they practiced listening instead of interrupting. They wrestled with real-life situations that had no perfect answers. They learned that helping someone in pain is rarely about saying the right words. Sometimes it is simply about making sure another person does not feel alone while finding the courage to seek help.

One exchange still echoes in my mind. A participant smiled and said, “Sir, I am only a peer facilitator. I don’t have to solve every problem.” There was something quietly powerful about that sentence.

We often think helping means fixing. We rush to offer advice before fully hearing the story. We search for solutions while the other person is still trying to find the words. Yet these students discovered something many adults spend years learning—that people in pain usually need understanding before they need answers.

Throughout the workshop, they kept returning to the same principles: listen without judging, respect another person’s choices, keep conversations confidential, recognize your own limits, and know when to accompany someone to the Guidance Office.

Notice the word accompany. Not rescue. Not diagnose. Not counsel. Just accompany. That may be one of the most beautiful words in education.

Across the country, guidance counselors continue to carry enormous responsibilities. Behind every Guidance Office door is a formator hoping there were more hours in the day—and, perhaps, more counselors down the hall. Even with additional plantilla positions, many schools still have one professional caring for hundreds or even thousands of learners while balancing counseling, testing, career guidance, crisis intervention, parent conferences, and endless paperwork.

Peer facilitators were never meant to take that place. They were meant to walk beside it.

Sometimes a friend saying, “Let’s go to the Guidance Office together,” carries more courage than any lecture ever could. That is why peer support matters. For many young people, asking a friend for help comes before asking anyone else (Martinez et al., 2020).

Perhaps Pag-Amlig challenged something deeper than our understanding of peer facilitation. It challenged our understanding of responsibility.

Mental health is not the Guidance Office’s responsibility alone. It belongs to all of us.

It belongs to teachers who notice when a usually active student suddenly disappears from class. It belongs to classmates who choose compassion over gossip. It belongs to student leaders who create spaces where everyone feels welcome. It belongs to parents who listen before they lecture. And it belongs to universities willing to invest in students who care enough to care for others.

The Mental Health Act reminds us that promoting well-being is a shared responsibility. But laws can only do so much. The rest depends on culture—the kind of campus culture that quietly tells every student, “You matter here.”

That culture is built one conversation at a time.

Watching those twenty-five volunteers receive their certificates, I realized I was not witnessing the end of a training program. As the OIC Guidance Counselor of ISUFST Dumangas Campus, I was witnessing 25 students quietly deciding what kind of people they wanted to become.

Years from now, no one will probably remember every workshop activity or every slide presented during Pag-Amlig. There will be no award for the peer facilitator who convinced a struggling classmate to seek counseling. No headline for the volunteer who simply stayed beside a friend during a difficult week.

Yet those unseen moments may become the university’s greatest achievements. Educational institutions are often measured by board examination results, research publications, and international rankings.

Those matter.

But perhaps another measure deserves equal attention. How many students finished college because someone noticed they were no longer okay? How many stayed because one conversation reminded them they were not alone?

Degrees prepare students for work. Compassion prepares them for life. Long after these twenty-five volunteers leave ISUFST, I hope they remember only one thing.

People rarely remember every word we say. They almost always remember how we made them feel.

And sometimes, changing a life begins not with a speech, a seminar, or a solution—but with the quiet courage to ask, “Kamusta ka gid?”…and then staying long enough to listen.

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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.