People before positions

By Herman M. Lagon

There is a point in almost every conversation when people stop speaking as officials and start speaking as fellow human beings. That realization came during an unhurried conversation with Dr. Cristito A. Eco, Regional Director of the Department of Education in Western Visayas, early this month.

I initially dropped by to discuss endorsements for an upcoming Education Summit of the UP Visayas Master of Education Alumni Association (UPVMEAA) set this July 24-25, 2026. Like many conversations among educators, however, the agenda quickly trickle down. We moved from guidance counseling to teacher promotions, from graduate school to plantilla items, from shrinking budgets to the never-ending pile of paperwork that somehow grows faster than the workforce. There were stories, occasional jokes, people coming in and out of the office, and the familiar feeling that educators never really run out of things worth talking about.

Then Dr. Eco casually mentioned something that stopped me. “We need around 15,000 guidance counselors. We only have about 4,000.” For a moment, the conversation became quieter. Those were no longer just numbers. They became faces.

I pictured the Grade 9 learner eating lunch alone after weeks of online bullying. I thought of the graduating student who keeps smiling in school even while quietly grieving the loss of a parent. I thought about the teacher who notices something is wrong but is already juggling six classes, advisory work, committee assignments, reports, and endless deadlines. In many schools, the guidance designate becomes the nearest safe adult—not because it is officially part of the job, but because somebody has to step in.

That is both inspiring and heartbreaking.

Dr. Eco was careful to make an important distinction. Guidance designates and associates contribute tremendously to schools, but licensed counseling is different. Counseling is not simply giving advice or listening over a cup of coffee. It involves professional preparation, ethical responsibilities, and decisions that sometimes affect lives. That distinction is not about protecting a profession. It is about protecting students when they are at their most vulnerable. Republic Act No. 9258 recognized this more than twenty years ago. The challenge today is no longer understanding the law. It is finding enough qualified people to make its promise real.

Our conversation drifted naturally toward another subject that could instantly fill any faculty room: promotions.

Every teacher seems to know someone who has been waiting for years for an item to open. Someone who finished a master’s degree hoping it would finally make a difference. Someone who enrolled in a doctorate because learning never really stops, even if promotions sometimes do.

Dr. Eco did not sugarcoat the process. Budgets are finite. Items are limited. Qualification standards exist for good reasons. Still, there was optimism in his voice. More teachers are pursuing graduate studies than ever before. The profession is changing.

One topic clearly close to Dr. Eco’s heart is digital innovation. He shared stories about helping establish the eCOSystem, which streamlined records and reduced manual work, and about the WeCare Assist application now taking shape in Region VI to strengthen school safety reporting. As he spoke, it became clear that his focus has never been on technology alone. It has always been on people. He hopes digital systems can remove unnecessary paperwork, improve transparency, and give teachers something they rarely have enough of—time.

I smiled because I have been seeing exactly that inside my own classroom.

This semester, my doctoral class has far more students than what many universities would consider ideal. Nearly everyone in the class comes from DepEd. They arrive straight from school with laptops, paperwork, and the familiar tiredness every teacher knows.

But the conversations are never about being tired. They are about learning, leadership, innovation, and how schools can do better.

That is when I realize they are not chasing another diploma. They are investing in the learners they will return to on Monday. New Zealand educator John Allan Clinton Hattie, in his Visible Learning: The Sequel (2023), reminds us that teacher learning remains one of the strongest influences on student achievement. Sitting in that classroom every week, I believe him.

What struck me most, however, was that our conversation never became another session of complaining about what education lacks. Instead, it kept returning to possibility.

There are plans to strengthen guidance services. Discussions about upgrading positions continue. Personnel actions are moving faster than before. More teachers are qualifying for promotions. Technology integration initiatives in the systems will ease the clerical burden within. None of these developments will solve everything tomorrow morning, but progress in education rarely arrives all at once. It usually comes quietly—one item approved, one scholarship granted, one teacher promoted, one learner helped.

Perhaps that is why good educational leaders rarely speak only about policies. They speak about people.

Before I left, we briefly discussed EDSUM26. Naturally, I hoped for DepEd’s support, but our conversation quickly moved beyond the event itself. We agreed that education does not suffer from a shortage of seminars. What it often lacks are honest conversations between classroom teachers, researchers, school leaders, and policymakers. The OECD (2020) has repeatedly pointed out that collaboration among educators is one of the strongest drivers of school improvement. That is not because collaboration produces instant solutions. It is because it produces better questions.

Driving home that afternoon, I realized I had not really spent an hour talking about plantilla items or salary grades.

I had spent an hour talking about people. The counselor hoping there will finally be enough colleagues to share the work. The teacher who studies for a doctorate after checking quizzes until midnight. The principal trying to encourage a young teacher to stay. The policymaker balancing a budget that will never be large enough. And the student who simply needs one trusted adult to say, “Tell me what is going on.”

Education has always looked like buildings, offices, rankings, and policies from a distance. Up close, it has always looked like people. That, more than anything else, was the lesson I carried home from my conversation with Dr. Cristito Eco.

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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.