Pubmat by Adrianne Coloma

by Giana Bacordo

To the average Atenean, the Sanggunian is a ubiquitous yet elusive presence — student-facing in nature, yet largely peripheral to everyday school life. Rarely will the average student encounter or engage with the intricacies of student government, and even then, such interaction remains limited to the occasional infographic on one’s feed, an announcement during MIP, or a vote during student elections. However, the Sanggunian, as people have known it, is currently undergoing one of its most significant overhauls in years.

One of the major driving forces behind this change is Ateneo de Manila Senior High School’s shift to the pathway system, applicable only to Batch 2028. Unlike its four-strand predecessor, the Career Pathway Framework offers ten different specialized tracks, creating a significant disparity between the Grade 11 and 12 batches. Compounded by accumulated operational friction within their systems, the Sanggunian has thus decided to introduce all new changes under an interim period for Academic Year 2026–2027. 

With councils such as the Office of the President (OP), Assembly of Class Officers (ACO), Athletes’ Council (AthC), Council of Student Organizations (CSO), and Council of Student Committees (CSC) being affected, encompassing nearly every facet of student representation, the machinations of Sanggunian have surely shifted, moving toward a more accessible framework. Ultimately, however, the more fundamental concern is that these bureaucratic shifts genuinely translate into better outcomes for the average Atenean, the community that the Sanggunian is meant to represent. With this comes the necessity for changes that prove to be accessible, effective, and responsive to the student body they exist to serve.

Newfound Changes

As previously mentioned, the primary catalyst for these changes is the disconnect between the Grade 11 and 12 batches, particularly in the curriculum that these two groups follow. In reference to the functions of the Sanggunian, councils such as ACO were heavily strand-centered in structure. Beyond this, however, those working on this new structure identified an underlying issue rooted within the student body.

“The restructuring wasn’t just the fact that our juniors had pathways and we had strands. It was also the fact that we saw that there was a really big divide between all the strands,” explained Mandie Montoya, ACO Vice President. “Since they all have certain stereotypes, they all have certain ways of describing one another or ways of seeing one another. We just wanted to dissolve that and make the ASHS more unified.”

This sentiment prompted the new House system, divided into House Libertas, House Memoria, House Intellectus, and House Voluntas — all with five sections each. Section assignments to each house are randomized annually regardless of a class’s chosen pathway, circumventing the social divide evident in the strand-based system. These names were based on the virtues named in St. Ignatius’s Suscipe, a prayer of total surrender in God’s name. Through this, ACO hopes to emphasize that “leadership is not merely authority received, but the responsible offering of oneself in service of others and the common good.”

In their efforts, the Sanggunian Restructuring Committee (SRC) chose to reevaluate how leadership should function starting from the student. To further guide these decisions, they utilized internal feedback from the members of the Sanggunian themselves. Various quality-of-life changes were made — Humans of Senior High (HOSH) moving from ACO to the Communications Department in line with its function regarding media coverage, reorganization of Secretariat Forms facilitating access to student services, and a general reshuffling of the various positions within these councils to make their roles and responsibilities more explicit.  

The same philosophy was used in the creation of the Suscipe House System, which introduces an intermediate middleman layer between sections and the wider ACO structure to prevent communication breakdowns. As expressed by Maisie Ruelo, Secretary of the SRC, “It [the middleman system] was more effective in the sense that it reaches all students equally. One representative handling 24 different section reps is quite difficult, especially considering the large amount of students you have here in the ASHS. In this specific context, with so many students, we want more representation as much as possible.” Dividing the 24 sections in Grade 11 in such a way makes student concerns much more manageable, allowing for tighter coordination and communication.

This feedback-driven approach was rooted in the understanding that the Sanggunian’s scope extends to every enrolled student. As noted by Ruelo, “If you’re a student and you’re part of your class, you’re in class officers, which is under ACO. If you’re a member of an org, your org is probably under one of the student orgs or student committees, which is either CSO or CSC.” Gathering feedback from Organizations, Sports Clubs, and Committees (OSCC) leaders prior to drafting the new structure ensured that changes were made to address the lived friction in student spaces.

What Changes for Students?

Beyond the behind-the-scenes operational changes made within the Sanggunian, several adjustments will make it into the everyday of student life. One of the most central changes is in class officer positions. In their Division Memorandum No. 45 S. 2026, the Department of Education (DepEd) defined a number of elective positions that students could campaign for — President, Vice President, and Secretary, among others. For this year, however, ACO has opted instead to follow a more nontraditional route, categorizing roles based on their functions. 

With this, four distinct roles were established: the Class Representative, tasked with representing the class’ interests beyond the classroom; the Class Formation Officer, responsible for fostering discipline, wellness, and participation; the Class Records Officer, managing class documentation and information; and the Class Resource Officer, handling the class’s finances and resources. 

The implementation of these new positions has, however, sparked concerns. Overhauling these public-facing officer roles to such an extent can create confusion among the broader student body, most of whom are unfamiliar with the roles and responsibilities that come with these new positions. While these changes were prompted by the feedback from within the ACO, they may not be appropriately driven by an intuitive understanding from the general student electorate. Most are accustomed to the aforementioned traditional titles and may struggle to grasp who to approach for specific issues.

Publication materials were disseminated on the official Sanggunian Instagram account. LeadOr, the Sanggunian’s leadership orientation for aspiring class officers, was hosted to inform students of the structural changes made. Yet, are these efforts truly enough to reach the common student, especially considering the fact that these positions were created in the first place to serve them?

Montoya acknowledges this gap, noting,  “The first way to be able to inform them [the student body] that these are the roles and responsibilities that they [the officers] should be doing is through officers actually doing the work.” 

It is this issue that ACO must grapple with for this Academic Year. As of now, ACO is “going to explore” this concern throughout the school year. Communication with non-involved students may prove to be a challenge for the Sanggunian, but with the ongoing interim period, it is hoped that the school’s student leaders may leave room for development and improvement, guided by continued engagement with the students they serve.

Aside from this, the SRC was able to identify important interpersonal issues at the classroom level. In collaboration with Mayari and, by proxy, the CSC, they introduced the “First Responder” role. Selected per section and trained by the Gender Hub, they act as peer-level representatives for those otherwise hesitant to reach out to the administration regarding any issues they have with sexual and gender-based violence.

It should be noted that all of these changes are operating under the interim period. As Ruelo clarified, because the current academic year represents a transition from the strand-based system of the Grade 12 students to the pathway-based system of the Grade 11 students, the committee opted for temporary structural changes rather than implementing them through a lengthy constitutional process. However, once next year’s SRC convenes, any structural revisions will be subject to Article 7 of the Sanggunian Constitution, requiring formal review and approval by the entire student body.

To evaluate the effectiveness of this interim period, the Sanggunian is opting for a new, centralized feedback mechanism, wherein students are given a direct channel to voice their concerns on student council operations and academic administration projects. While this project is currently pending, it represents a crucial effort to connect with the student body and further refine the systems that will be overhauled under the SRC.

Ultimately, student leaders emphasize that students remain at the center of this restructuring. “As much as possible, we’re trying to constantly improve the way we implement our roles and our projects for the students. We saw that this was an opportunity for us to change many things that previous student leaders weren’t able to do,” Ruelo shared on the Sanggunian’s continued development. “We want to continue that further into the school year to allow them to remove the barriers that prevent us from improving Sanggu to serve students.” Montoya echoed this sentiment for ACO, highlighting that the changes made in every classroom required the consideration of countless student perspectives.

This year’s restructuring remains a massive pivot from what students once knew of the Sanggunian before. Yet, because this interim period is inherently flexible, the changes are far from set in stone. This year requires room for continuous trial, error, and adjustment based on student feedback. As the school year continues to progress, it remains central that the Sanggunian exists to serve the students and is guided always by this vision. The real measure of success remains to be whether the student body feels a tangible improvement in representation, accountability, and support throughout the year.