President Marcos has ordered his Cabinet to fast-track an executive order harmonizing how class suspensions are announced nationwide, after monsoon flooding this rainy season left students in some areas out of school for nearly a month while confusing, conflicting calls from mayors, governors, and the Department of Education piled up. The push comes as fresh data shows the country lost a national average of four learning days as of September 11 — with Pampanga alone recording 26.
"There should be harmonization so that announcements will not be confusing, whether it will be announced locally, by the mayor, by the governor, or by DepEd," Palace press officer Claire Castro said, relaying the President's instructions. "The President wants it expedited."
What the new rules would require
According to details shared by officials, the executive order would let suspension and resumption decisions be automatic, localized, or "granular," depending on how widespread the actual risk is. Instead of a blanket suspension across an entire city or province, local government units would be required to specify exactly which municipalities, barangays, or even individual schools are affected — and to coordinate that call between local disaster risk reduction offices and education authorities before it goes out.
That granularity cuts both ways: it would also allow schools in unaffected pockets of a broader suspension zone to resume classes sooner, rather than waiting out a suspension order that covers a whole city because of flooding in one district.
DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara framed the ask to LGUs plainly: "Our request is simple: be specific when you suspend. If the risk is limited to certain areas, identifying those areas can help schools in unaffected areas continue learning."
Why it matters now
The numbers behind the push are stark. As of September 11, 34,775 of the country's roughly 47,000 DepEd schools — about 72% — had experienced at least one suspension this rainy season. Region 3 averaged nine lost days; Pampanga, the hardest-hit province, averaged 26. Multiply lost days by nearly 35,000 schools and the scale of disrupted instruction becomes clear, even before accounting for the working parents who had no warning to arrange childcare, or the small vendors near school gates who lost a month of income in fits and starts.
Much of that disruption traces back to a basic coordination gap: a mayor calling a suspension while a neighboring town or the DepEd division office stays silent, or a suspension announced too late for parents already on their way to drop off kids. The executive order is meant to close that gap by putting a single, predictable chain of coordination in place before the next storm — rather than improvising city by city, as has largely been the pattern.
What parents and students should do in the meantime
Until the executive order takes effect, families should still check both their LGU's official channels (city or municipal social media pages, or barangay announcements) and their school or DepEd division office directly, since the current patchwork means one source alone may not have the full picture. Schools are expected to continue posting suspension notices through DepEd's usual channels — text blasts, school group chats, and local radio — while the new rules are finalized.
What's still unknown
Neither the Palace nor DepEd has released a target date for signing the executive order, and officials have not yet said what, if anything, would compel an LGU that ignores the harmonized format to fall in line. Those are the two questions parents' groups and local officials will be watching for once the order is actually released.
Context
The push follows a pattern of ad hoc fixes to disaster response this year — including an earlier executive order restoring LGU sign-off on completed infrastructure projects — as flooding has repeatedly exposed gaps between national policy and how it plays out on the ground in individual barangays. It also lands in a year when public trust in flood-related government spending is already strained by the ongoing flood-control corruption scandal working its way through the Ombudsman and Sandiganbayan.
