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Filipino teachers urge Marcos to build evacuation centers to avoid school disruptions
Various schools across the Philippines serve as evacuation centers during floods, volcanic eruptions and other calamities; this practice often results in learning gaps for students
- PUBLISHED: Fri 14 Aug 2026, 6:00 AM
As soon as floodwaters began receding, firefighters started arriving at Malanday Elementary School in Marikina City to carry out flushing and clean-up operations after the school sheltered hundreds of evacuees. The school hoped to resume classes once the evacuees had returned to their homes.
Various schools across the Philippines serve as evacuation centers during floods, typhoons, volcanic eruptions and other calamities and disasters. This practice, however, often results in learning gaps for Filipino students.
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The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) have long called for dedicated evacuation centers so schools are no longer automatically turned into evacuation centers during flooding. “Apart from schools not being suitable as evacuation centers, classes are delayed until evacuees can return to their homes and communities,” ACT chairperson and public school teacher Ruby Bernardo told Khaleej Times on Tuesday.
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The activist teacher said the Philippines needs dedicated evacuation centers as well as accountability, recovery of stolen funds, and real protection of schools and communities from the effects of disasters and calamities.
Bernardo said many schools are often submerged in floods and suffer various damages because of government’s substandard flood control program.
“Our call is to allocate sufficient funds to education for the construction of additional classrooms and facilities, while ensuring that quality evacuation centers are built in sufficient numbers for every city and province,” Bernardo underscored.
Education minister Sonny Angara agreed using schools as evacuation centers during floods, typhoons, volcanic eruptions and other calamities and disasters threaten to deepen long-term learning gaps for Filipino students.
During an inspection of Santolan Elementary School, that also sheltered residents displaced by the recent monsoon flooding, Angara called on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to build dedicated evacuation centers to prevent compounding lost instructional time.
"Learning loss does not just go away," Angara said. "It really piles up over the years."
Angara revealed that more than 40,000 schools across several regions, representing roughly one-fifth of the nation's total, were recently affected by weather disruptions.
Angara pointed out that building dedicated emergency shelters falls under the mandate of the Department of Public Works and Highways to relieve pressure on educational facilities. The DPWH, however, had some of its funding suspended at it faces corruption probes on substandard or missing infrastructure projects.
Meanwhile, the Makabayan coalition of progressive lawmakers criticised the Marcos administration for cutting the budget for education next year. In the proposed 2027 national budget, the current P1.2685 trillion (Dh76 billion) allocation for education will be reduced by P68.5 billion (Dh4.15billion) or by 5.3 per cent.