KABATAAN Party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel on Thursday urged the government to declare a mental health emergency following the Department of Education’s report that 404 students took their own lives and 2,147 others attempted suicide during Academic Year 2021-2022.

The lawmaker promised to file a resolution urging the Marcos administration to declare a mental health emergency, investigate the crisis and expedite policies to address it.

Manuel said the declaration will allow immediate and substantial government action to address the issue.

The lawmaker was disturbed by the DepEd’s report that the ratio of mental health professionals to students is at 1:13,400, far from the ideal ratio of 1:500.

“It’s also best for Congress to exercise its oversight powers to check the implementation of the Mental Health Law so we can better address shortcomings,” Manuel said.

“Crunching the data, there had been more than one student who fell victim to suicide per day while roughly one student attempted to commit suicide every four hours in the past academic year. These are numbers we have never seen before,” he said.

“Higit sa pagtugon sa mental health services, di natin maitatanggi na epekto rin ito ng higit dalawang taong pagsara ng mga paaralan at ang distance o hybrid learning modality na dumoble sa load at gastusin ng mga estudyante. In this regard, we also need a serious review and overhaul of education policies especially the K-12 while we ensure 100% face-to-face classes,” Manuel added.