The Department of Education (DepEd), through its Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Service (DRRMS), has unveiled LIGTAS+, an artificial intelligence-powered risk management platform designed to protect public schools and students nationwide from natural hazards.
Developed in collaboration with E-CAIR and SEAMEO INNOTECH, the initiative responds directly to the recurring suspension of classes caused by typhoons, floods and seismic events. Unplanned school closures disrupt instruction for millions of learners, worsening the country’s learning recovery gap. The platform aligns with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s directive to mitigate disaster-driven school disruptions through data-driven planning.
LIGTAS+ aggregates data from multiple satellite systems and scientific agencies to deliver localized risk profiles for more than 47,000 public schools across the Philippines. The system integrates Himawari-9 IR for cloud data updated every 10 minutes, Sentinel-1 SAR to detect active flooding through thick clouds and at night, three AI weather models for 10-day predictive forecasting and PHIVOLCS feeds to track earthquake intensity and active volcanic threats, including ashfall modeling. Using its central AI engine, the platform processes this data down to individual campus levels and updates risk assessments every six hours.
The platform equips education officials with practical decision-making tools, including an interactive Live Map featuring AI updates, a School Search function for quick risk profiling and automatically generated one-page Situation Reports for immediate hazard briefings. Through nine tailored hazard views, school heads and division personnel can categorize campus risk into Extreme, High, Medium and Low tiers.
To directly address educational impacts, LIGTAS+ incorporates a Learning Outcomes Overlay. This feature maps where disaster disruptions intersect with curriculum delivery, allowing DepEd to deploy targeted academic interventions and prevent cumulative learning loss. LIGTAS+ is accessible to authorized DepEd Central Office staff, Schools Division personnel, school heads and teachers using official DepEd email accounts via ligtas.deped.gov.ph.