Students’ mental health under strain

Angel (not her real name), 24, had been quietly battling mental health issues since 2020 when she had to make a difficult choice with regard to her college course.

For some, it may seem like a trivial matter — something not worth spending mental bandwidth over — but for Angel, it was a tough decision: to follow her passion or to meet her family’s expectations. She ended up taking a course she didn’t like for a year before shifting to her true interest: nutrition. The decision delayed her graduation by at least two years.

While it was ultimately the right choice for her well-being, it didn’t spare her from the judgment of her family.

“Sometimes I thought they had already accepted that my graduation would be delayed by at least a year. But then out of nowhere, they’d throw it back at me, saying I just wasted time and money,” she said.

As much as she can, Angel tries to understand where her family is coming from — the expensive tuition, her weekly allowance, and monthly rental fees, yet oftentimes, it gets too much to bear.

She recalled the moment she finally opened up about how her family’s judgment was affecting her, only for her feelings to be brushed aside.

“It’s the usual response from older people; they say they’re just expressing their opinions. They called me too sensitive, and then compared me to their time when, according to them, even being cursed at was something they just accepted,” she said.

In 2024, the Philippines’ Mental Health Quotient (MHQ) dropped to 68.76 percent, a decline from 78.44 in 2023, according to the Mental State of the World report by a United States-based non-profit Sapien Labs. The MHQ measures emotional, cognitive, and social well-being, along with one’s resilience and drive.

Scores are classified into six categories, and the Philippines falls under the “managing” category, where most individuals report being fully productive about 70 percent of the time, but the lower score suggests a deterioration in one’s overall mental well-being.

In a statement on Friday, Adult Psychiatry Doctor from the National Center for Mental Health Dr. Ed Michael Ruiz emphasized that to accurately see the MHQ, it is important to answer the ‘whys’ of its decreasing rate.

“Because what the test assesses is how we cope, so to be able to answer the why question of it, we would have to do some more qualitative research exploring why,” Ruiz said in a televised interview.

“We do this by gathering standardized assessments, interviews, focus group discussions, particularly on at-risk individuals, then we analyze the data by picking up the themes in their answers,” he said.

Most notably, the adult psychiatric doctor highlighted the degree of problems that most are facing today.

Among the factors Ruiz noted are generational differences and the rising effects of technology, and even the intake of ultra-processed food which have toxins that did not exist in previous generations.

He said the Covid-19 pandemic also generated intangible consequences, such as the secondary effects of isolation, connectedness and routines that vanished.

In a 2021 study of over 200 Filipino college students authored by Rowalt Alibudbud of De La Salle University titled “Academic Experiences as Determinants of Anxiety and Depression of Filipino College Students in Metro Manila,” around 35 percent were found to be at risk for depression, while 47 percent were at risk for anxiety.

The study indicated factors such as the pressure to succeed and difficulty coping with studies.

This month the pressure may have been too much for one student.

On 17 May, Junver Toledo, a student in his last year at the University of Santo Tomas College of Rehabilitation Sciences, took his life after failing a subject by a margin of just 1.5 percent, on the second time he took the class.

While the university extended its condolences and called it an “unfortunate incident,” many students demanded a “systemic” change.

In social media posts, people argued that while mental health services are available, interventions often arrive too late.

Instead, they emphasized, academic institutions should foster more proactive, compassionate environments, where students are not reduced to numbers and instructors are trained to recognize mental health as a serious concern.