The trauma can calcify—it shapes how they learn, relate, and see the world
Two weeks after two teenage boys opened fire at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City — killing three students and wounding twenty — the school reopened its gates on July 6, its walls freshly painted and performers brought in to signal renewal. Yet beneath the gestures of normalcy, a structural wound remained exposed: of 603 people who received initial psychological support, 38 students were identified as high-risk for mental health crisis, while the entire city could offer only three registered guidance counselors to meet them. A community's capacity to grieve and recover is only as strong as the institutions it builds in advance of tragedy — and here, those institutions had not yet been built.
- Three students are dead, twenty are wounded, and dozens more carry invisible injuries that no perimeter fence or metal detector can address.
- When classes resumed, nearly a third of students stayed home — some families already quietly searching for other schools, others simply unable to face the return.
- Of 603 people given psychological first aid in the days after the shooting, 38 students were flagged as high-risk, meaning they require sustained psychiatric care to avoid permanent psychological damage.
- A single reassigned counselor — one person — has been tasked with managing the mental health needs of a traumatized school that has no licensed guidance counselor of its own.
- Officials have named what is needed — more counselors, reclassified roles, funded implementation of an existing mental health law — but the resources have not yet arrived.
- The school is open, classes are running, and the scaffolding of recovery is visible; what remains uncertain is whether the deeper, slower work of healing will receive the sustained support it demands.
Two weeks after a shooting at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City left three students dead and twenty wounded, the school reopened on July 6. The walls had been repainted. Performers came to entertain the students. The message was deliberate: we are moving forward. But beneath the surface of that reopening, a quieter crisis was taking shape.
The attack occurred on June 22, carried out by two minors aged 14 and 15. When classes resumed, the school operated in a fractured state — seventh and eighth graders returning in person, while ninth and tenth graders, whose classrooms had been damaged, attended through a blended model. Of 336 seventh graders enrolled, 235 showed up. Of 369 eighth graders, 237 came. The absences were expected. Some families had already begun looking elsewhere.
Education Undersecretary Malcolm Garma told a Senate committee that the reopening was meant to signal safety and begin erasing the psychological weight the shooting had left behind. Additional metal detectors, a walkthrough screening system, and a higher perimeter fence were part of the response. But security hardware could not address what the DepEd's own assessment had uncovered.
In the days following the shooting, the department provided psychological first aid to 603 students, teachers, and parents. Of those, 38 students were flagged as high-risk for mental health crisis — young people who had witnessed the shooting or been so deeply affected that they required ongoing psychiatric care. Guidance counselor Julienne Rose Peñaranda-Saballa warned that without sustained support, the damage could become permanent: not just academic, but relational, existential — a lasting erosion of their sense of safety and future.
The structural problem was stark. San Jose National High School had no licensed guidance counselor on staff. The entire city of Tacloban had only three registered guidance counselors working for the DepEd. Peñaranda-Saballa, reassigned from another school, was one person trying to hold the mental health needs of dozens of traumatized students.
Garma acknowledged that long-term care fell to the Tacloban City division, and named what it would require: reclassified roles, new hires, real funding. A law already existed — the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act — but implementation had not yet followed. The school was open. Classes were happening. For 38 students, and for the community around them, the real work of recovery had only just begun.
Two weeks after a shooting at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City left three students dead and twenty wounded, the school's gates opened again on July 6. The walls had been repainted. Performers came to entertain the students. The message was clear: we are trying to move forward. But beneath the surface of this reopening, a quieter crisis was unfolding—one that would not resolve with fresh paint or a day of performances.
The shooting happened on June 22, carried out by two minors, aged 14 and 15. When classes resumed, the school operated in a fractured state. Students in seventh and eighth grade returned to in-person instruction, while ninth and tenth graders—whose classrooms had sustained damage in the attack—attended through a blended model, some learning online while repairs continued. Of the 336 seventh graders enrolled, 235 showed up. Of the 369 eighth graders, 237 attended. The absences were expected. Some families had already begun looking at other schools. Others were simply not ready.
Education Undersecretary Malcolm Garma told the Senate basic education committee that the reopening served a dual purpose: to signal to parents and the community that the school was safe again, and to begin the work of erasing the psychological weight that the shooting had left behind. "It is really to remove the trauma, the psychosocial and emotional trauma that our teachers, our learners have experienced," he said. The school had installed additional metal detectors and a walkthrough screening system. A higher perimeter fence was under construction. Security had been visibly strengthened.
But security hardware could not address what the Department of Education's own assessment had revealed. In the days immediately following the shooting, the DepEd provided psychological first aid to students, teachers, and parents over a three-day period. Of the 603 people who received this initial intervention, 38 students were flagged as "high-risk" for a mental health crisis. These were the young people who had either directly witnessed the shooting or been so deeply affected by it that they required ongoing psychiatric care. Julienne Rose Peñaranda-Saballa, a registered guidance counselor with the DepEd's Tacloban City Schools Division, explained what this designation meant: these students needed to continue with psychiatric consultations and participate in psychosocial activities designed to help them heal. Without this sustained support, she warned, the damage could become permanent—affecting not just their academic performance but their ability to form relationships, their sense of safety in the world, their very capacity to imagine a future.
The challenge was structural. San Jose National High School had no licensed guidance counselor on staff. The entire city of Tacloban had only three registered guidance counselors working for the Department of Education. Peñaranda-Saballa, who worked at another school, had been reassigned to provide emergency psychological support at San Jose. She was one person trying to manage the mental health needs of dozens of traumatized students across a school system stretched thin. Some students had only recently been discharged from hospitals. Others had not yet been ready to engage with mental health services during the initial intervention phase and were now beginning that work.
Garma acknowledged during the Senate hearing that the long-term responsibility for this care fell to the DepEd's Tacloban City division. He also noted what would be required to meet that responsibility: the reclassification of existing guidance counselors and the hiring of school counselor associates. In other words, the system needed more people, more resources, more sustained commitment. The law existed—Republic Act No. 12080, the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act—but implementation required will and funding that had not yet materialized. For now, the school had reopened. Classes were happening. But for 38 students, and for the community that held them, the real work of recovery was only beginning.
Citas Notables
It is really to remove the trauma, the psychosocial and emotional trauma that our teachers, our learners have experienced because of this incident.— Education Undersecretary Malcolm Garma
If not, it may affect them long-term, academically, personally, socially with the interactions with other people and the society, and in their perception of the world.— Julienne Rose Peñaranda-Saballa, registered guidance counselor
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
When you say 38 students are "high-risk," what does that actually mean in practical terms? What happens to them now?
It means they either saw the shooting directly or were so traumatized by it that they need ongoing psychiatric care. They can't just come back to class and move on. They need regular consultations with psychiatrists and activities designed to help them process what happened. Without that, the trauma can calcify—it affects how they learn, how they relate to other people, how they see the world.
And the school has the resources to provide that?
No. That's the real problem. The school doesn't have a single licensed guidance counselor. The entire city has three. One of them was pulled in to help, but she's stretched across multiple schools. It's a system that was already understaffed before the shooting.
So what happens to the students who don't get the help they need?
Peñaranda-Saballa, the counselor, was explicit about this. If they don't get sustained support, it affects them long-term—academically, socially, in how they interact with others. The trauma doesn't just fade. It shapes them.
The school reopened with new security measures. Does that address the mental health piece at all?
It addresses the fear of another shooting happening. Metal detectors, higher fences—those are real and necessary. But they don't heal the students who are already broken. Security and mental health care are two different problems.
Why does the story matter now, two weeks after the shooting?
Because the reopening is being framed as a return to normal, but for 38 students and their families, nothing is normal. The real crisis is just beginning. And the system doesn't have the capacity to handle it.
What would it take to fix this?
The law exists. Republic Act 12080 is supposed to ensure mental health support in schools. But it requires hiring more counselors, reclassifying existing ones, committing resources. Right now, it's a law without teeth.