I have a table with 10 columns, and about 20,000 rows.

I want to get the count of the distinct values in 5 of the columns, so normally, I would probably write 5 queries thus:

SELECT column_a, count(column_a) FROM my_table GROUP BY column_a;

SELECT column_b, count(column_b) FROM my_table GROUP BY column_b;

SELECT column_c, count(column_c) FROM my_table GROUP BY column_c;

SELECT column_d, count(column_d) FROM my_table GROUP BY column_d;

SELECT column_e, count(column_e) FROM my_table GROUP BY column_e;

My question is, is there a way I can do this in a more generic/future proof way? 

Maybe a stored procedure which I just pass the table name to? Or some PHP function which I just give the name of the table to? 

Ultimate goal is to write just one query to get the above data.