Four times a year, at a set hour, schools across the country duck under desks. It looks like a routine, and in a sense it is. It is also a national exercise with a legal basis, a reporting requirement and a chain of memoranda behind it.
What is the NSED?
The Nationwide Simultaneous Earthquake Drill, usually abbreviated NSED, is a quarterly exercise conducted across the country at the same time. Its stated purpose is to increase awareness and enhance preparedness for an earthquake regarded as inevitable rather than hypothetical.
Schools are not incidental participants. Offices across all levels of the Department of Education and schools are enjoined to take part in each quarterly drill, pursuant to the approved memorandum of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
Who sets the schedule?
The NDRRMC sets the national schedule through its own memorandum. DepEd then issues memoranda enjoining participation, and regional and division offices cascade those with local detail.
In practice the document a school actually acts on is a division memorandum, which is why the dates a parent can find online often come from a division office rather than from the national council. The calendar-year schedule is typically released as a single memorandum covering all four quarters, then reiterated ahead of each one.
This cascade is the standard pattern in Philippine basic education, and it is worth understanding rather than fighting. Our guide on how to find and read DepEd orders covers tracing an instruction back to its source.
What is the legal basis?
Republic Act No. 10121, the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010. It mandates all national government agencies to institutionalise DRRM policies, structures, coordination mechanisms and programmes, with continuing budget appropriation, from national to local levels.
The Act organises DRRM into four thematic areas: Prevention and Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery and Rehabilitation. Drills sit in Preparedness.
Inside DepEd, two orders from 2015 carry it into schools:
- DepEd Order No. 37, s. 2015 — the Comprehensive DRRM in Basic Education Framework, built on three pillars: Safe Learning Facilities, School Disaster Management, and Disaster Risk Reduction Education
- DepEd Order No. 21, s. 2015 — the DRRM Coordination and Information Management Protocol
The three pillars are worth noting because they show the drill is one component of a wider obligation. A school that runs the drill but sits in an unsafe building has satisfied one pillar of three.
What does a school have to do afterwards?
Document it. School DRRM coordinators accomplish a monitoring and reporting template, attach signed forms with photo and video documentation of the drill as conducted, and submit it to the division DRRM coordinator. Division memoranda commonly set the deadline at five working days after the quarterly drill.
This is why the drill is photographed. The documentation is not for the school's own records; it is a submission.
How is this different from the senior high school subject?
Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction is a subject with curriculum content, taught at senior high school level. The quarterly drill is an operational exercise that every school runs regardless of level, from kindergarten upward.
They are related in intent and separate in practice. Our disaster readiness subject guide covers what the subject contains and where it sits in the strand structure.
There is a third thing sometimes confused with both: class suspension. Suspensions follow their own rules and their own authorities, and our class suspension guide covers who may declare one.
For parents
- Expect four a year. A drill is not a sign that something is wrong or that a warning has been issued.
- Ask what your school's evacuation area is. School Disaster Management is a named pillar of the framework, and the answer should exist.
- Ask about the building, not only the drill. Safe Learning Facilities is the first pillar. A drill in an unsafe structure is a partial answer.
- Check the division memorandum for dates rather than a national announcement, since that is the level schools actually act on.
- Do not confuse the drill with the subject. One is an exercise for everyone; the other is senior high school coursework.
Ready to find the right school? Browse schools or compare Philippine schools by city, programme and tuition on SchoolFinderPH.
Sources
- Official Gazette — Republic Act No. 10121: Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010
- DepEd — DO 21, s. 2015: Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Coordination and Information Management Protocol
- DepEd NCR — RM No. 162, s. 2025: The CY 2025 Quarterly Nationwide Simultaneous Earthquake Drill (NSED) Schedule
- SchoolFinderPH — Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction Subject Guide
- SchoolFinderPH — Class Suspension Rules in the Philippines
- SchoolFinderPH — How to Find and Read DepEd Orders
Disclaimer: drill schedules are set annually by NDRRMC and DepEd memoranda and cascaded by division offices, and reporting deadlines are set locally. Confirm with your school head or schools division office before relying on any date here.
