DepEd has only 200 security guards for 48,000 public schools

MANILA, Philippines — There are only roughly 200 security guard positions across the Department of Education's 48,000 public schools, Secretary Sonny Angara said Monday, June 29. 

That is equivalent to about one security guard for every 240 schools. 

Amid several recent run-ins with campus violence, Angara said he has asked the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to fund more plantilla items for security posts in schools.

He did not specify how many more security guard positions DepEd has asked of the DBM. Philstar.com has reached out to DepEd for comment and will update this article with their response.

"We need funding or positions for security guards. That's the most important thing," Angara told reporters in mixed English and Filipino during an ambush interview at Alfonso Castañeda National High School in Nueva Vizcaya. "Our plantilla items for security guards are severely lacking."

Angara blamed the shortfall to a prior "nationalization" of government positions before his appointment as DepEd chief in mid-2024 that removed several of DepEd's security guard items. "The security guard positions were removed. Only about 200 were left," he said, adding that there are even campuses that need more than one guard.

Angara gave this response on a day when two more schools were rattled by campus violence scares.

In Escalante City, Negros Occidental, police are investigating a student accused of posting an online plan to copy the Tacloban shooting, prompting alarmed parents to pull their children out of Escalante City National High School. 

Hours earlier, Batangas City Integrated High School suspended classes until further notice over a "possible threat of a school shooting."

Both followed the June 22 attack at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City, where two students aged 14 and 15 fired at least 34 rounds inside their campus, killing three classmates and wounding 20. 

Police later said the pair planned the attack for weeks. Their initial investigation also showed the pair had managed to sneak in their firearms despite the posting of two security guards on campus.

Three days later, the Department of the Interior and Local Government said it had foiled a separate plot by a 14-year-old to mount a mass-casualty attack at Tolosa National High School, also in Leyte.

It has long been the practice for several public schools to outsource security personnel from third-party private agencies, often using their maintenance and other operating expenses.