Angara to school heads: Use AI-aided tool for early disaster response

MANILA, Philippines — Education Secretary Sonny Angara urged school officials to integrate a new hazard assessment tool into their disaster preparedness routines to better protect students from disaster-related learning disruptions, according to a statement issued by the Department of Education (DepEd) on Wednesday.

The assessment tool is called Project Ligtas+, which stands for Learning Institution Geohazard Tracking and Assessment for Safety, a decision-support platform designed to convert raw weather and geological data into clear, school-level safety alerts to guide proactive hazard management.

Angara noted that Ligtas+ empowers school officials to gauge risks early and respond before disruptions worsen, thus shifting disaster response from being reactive to proactive.

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“With Ligtas+, we can anticipate risks early so our school leaders can make timely, informed decisions before hazards turn into emergencies. What we need is clear and reliable information for earlier preparation,” Angara added.

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READ: DepEd launches AI-powered platform for school disaster preparedness

Quick overview of field situations

Ligtas+ was developed by DepEd’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Service (DRRMS) and the Education Center for AI Research (Ecair).

The platform streamlines workflows across all DepEd administrative levels, enabling school heads, teachers, and disaster response coordinators to securely log in using their official credentials.

Users begin by checking an interactive nationwide map accessible on mobile or desktop devices to immediately identify hazard risks across the country’s more than 47,000 public schools.

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To help school officials anticipate hazard risks, the system combines artificial intelligence and traditional weather forecast sources with satellite radar imagery and data from key government and international scientific agencies.

These sources include the following:

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• Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration for rainfall, wind speed, and extreme heat tracking
• Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) for estimating earthquake shaking intensity and monitoring volcanic ashfall
• Mines and Geosciences Bureau for susceptibility to landslides and flooding of an area
• US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Union’s Copernicus satellite data collection for international climate data

So, when emergencies strike, school safety teams can report conditions in real time instead of spending hours manually compiling reports during typhoons and other disasters. Administrators can then generate standardized emergency situation reports in as little as 5 minutes.

READ: DepEd boosts recovery efforts of schools affected by disasters

To speed up response times, Ligtas+ connects directly to DepEd’s Incident Management and Reporting System (IMRS). Being able to survey field conditions immediately, decision-makers get a near real-time overview so they can deploy support before, during, and after an emergency efficiently.

According to DepEd, the 4H Education in Emergencies Framework —consisting of Hayo (continue), Hinay (ease-in), Hinga check-in), and Hinto (Stop)—is also integrated into Ligtas+ to guide school administrators in their decisions to adjust schedules, shift to alternative learning modes, or suspend classes based on hazard severity.

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DepEd clarified that Ligtas+ serves as a decision-support tool and is not meant to replace official advisories, established protocols, and field assessments. /atm