TL;DR: Physical Science was an 80-hour core subject in the 2016 Senior High School curriculum, delivered at 40 hours per quarter, combining physics and chemistry through their history and their everyday applications rather than through heavy computation. STEM learners never took it: DepEd Order No. 21, s. 2019 swapped it and Earth and Life Science for Earth Science and Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction, to avoid repeating content their strand subjects already covered. Under DepEd Order No. 017, s. 2026 the subject is gone by name. Annex F.2 credits it against Conceptual Physics and Chemistry in Daily Life, an 80-hour Academic elective in the STEM cluster, Grade 12 only, with the new core subject General Science as its prerequisite. Being an elective, it is now optional for everyone.
Physical Science is the Senior High subject people most often confuse with Physics, and the confusion has consequences when a learner is choosing subjects or a teacher is choosing materials. Here is what the curriculum guide actually says.
What the Subject Covers
The curriculum guide gives a single dense sentence of subject description: the "evolution of our understanding of matter, motion, electricity, magnetism, light, and the universe from ancient times to the present; applications of physics and chemistry concepts in contexts such as atmospheric phenomena, cosmology, astronomy, vision, medical instrumentation, space technology, drugs, sources of energy, pollution and recycling, fitness and health, and cosmetics."
Two things follow from that. First, the organising principle is historical: how ideas developed, not just what the current answer is. Second, the applications listed are consumer-facing, which is why the guide devotes a whole content area to household and personal care products.
The version DepEd published carries tagged science equipment against each competency, so a school could see what apparatus a competency assumes. That matters for a subject that is often taught without a laboratory.
The Ten Content Areas
Quarter 3
- How the elements found in the universe were formed. Formation of the elements during the Big Bang and during stellar evolution, and the distribution of the chemical elements and isotopes in the universe.
- How the idea of the atom, along with the idea of the element, evolved. From the Ancient Greeks through Dalton, Thomson, Rutherford, Moseley and Bohr to the present.
- How the properties of matter relate to their chemical structure. Polarity, intermolecular forces, and the link between structure and observable properties.
- How chemical changes take place. The aspects of chemical change, energetics, and reaction behaviour.
- How chemistry contributes to the understanding of household and personal care products, followed by the properties and mode of action of consumer products such as cleaning agents, cosmetics and medicines.
Quarter 4
- How we come to realise that the Earth is not the centre of the universe. Aristotle, Aristarchus, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Tycho Brahe and Galileo, including Galileo's observations of Jupiter and sunspots.
- Why we believe that the laws of physics are universal. The Copernican model, Newton's laws including the law of inertia, and the law of universal gravitation, set against Aristotelian assumptions.
- How light acts as a wave and a particle. Reflection, refraction, diffraction and the wave-particle question.
- How physics helps us understand the cosmos. Relativity and the Big Bang.
Physical Science Is Not Physics
This distinction is worth making explicit because it changes what a learner should expect.
Physical Science is an integrated survey covering both physics and chemistry, taught largely through their history and their consumer applications, with light mathematical demand. General Physics 1 and 2, by contrast, were STEM specialised subjects. The DO 21 description of General Physics 1 has learners studying mechanics of particles, rigid bodies and fluids, waves, heat and thermodynamics "using the methods and concepts of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, graphical analysis, and basic calculus." General Physics 2 adds electricity and magnetism, optics, special relativity and atomic and nuclear phenomena on the same mathematical footing.
So a learner who wants to know whether Senior High School prepared them for an engineering or physics degree should check which of the two they took. Our BS Physics guide sets out what university-level physics assumes on day one.
Who Took It, and Who Did Not
Physical Science was a core subject, so ABM, HUMSS, GAS, Sports, Arts and Design and TVL learners all took it.
STEM learners did not. Paragraph 44 of Annex 2 to DepEd Order No. 21, s. 2019 explains the swap: Physical Science consists of basic topics in Physics and Chemistry, and Earth and Life Science includes basic topics in Biology, all of which are already covered by the STEM specialised subjects. To avoid repetition, STEM learners took Earth Science and Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction in their place, listed in Table 2.12 as special core curriculum subjects. We cover that second subject in our Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction guide, and the strand itself in our STEM strand guide.
That swap is the single most misreported fact about Physical Science. Plenty of strand comparison articles list it as a subject every Senior High learner takes. It never was.
Where the Content Went
DepEd Order No. 017, s. 2026, the Strengthened Senior High School Curriculum signed 4 June 2026, sets five core subjects for Grade 11. Physical Science is not among them, and our SHS core subjects guide covers what is.
Annex F.2 of the order, the equivalency matrix, credits Physical Science against Conceptual Physics and Chemistry in Daily Life. Annex A places that subject in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics cluster of Academic Electives at 80 hours, restricted to Grade 12, with the core subject General Science as its prerequisite. The parallel entry, Conceptual Biology and Earth and Space Science, is credited against the old Earth and Life Science and carries the same structure.
Read together, that is a clean mapping of the two old non-STEM science core subjects onto two new Grade 12 electives, sitting downstream of a shared Grade 11 science core.
The Change That Matters
Physical Science was compulsory for most Senior High learners. Conceptual Physics and Chemistry in Daily Life is an elective, in one cluster, in one grade, behind a prerequisite. A learner in the Business and Entrepreneurship cluster or in any Technical-Professional cluster can now finish Senior High School without meeting it.
What every learner does still take is the new core subject General Science, 160 hours across Grade 11, aligned to the college general education subject Science, Technology and Society under CHED Memorandum Order No. 020, s. 2013. Its DepEd curriculum guide describes a transdisciplinary approach to "how the study of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Earth and Space Science interact to explain natural phenomena and how they can be utilized to advance the Philippines' economy." Whether 160 hours of integrated science covers what 80 hours of Physical Science plus 80 hours of Earth and Life Science used to is a fair question, and one a school can answer by reading the General Science guide against the two old ones. For how science content is built from the lower grades, see our DepEd science curriculum guide.
Timing: DO 017 applies to Grade 11 from SY 2026-2027 and to Grade 12 from SY 2027-2028, with Grade 12 learners in non-pilot schools this year continuing on the 2016 curriculum. If that is you, Physical Science is still your subject and the ten content areas above are still your syllabus.
Comparing senior high schools? Browse schools and check tracks, tuition and reviews across the Philippines on SchoolFinderPH.
Sources
- DepEd — K to 12 Senior High School Core Subject curriculum guide, Physical Science, with tagged science equipment (official PDF, via Internet Archive)
- DepEd Learning Portal — Physical Science Curriculum Guide
- DepEd — DO 21, s. 2019, Policy Guidelines on the K to 12 Basic Education Program (official PDF, Annex 2 Secondary Education)
- DepEd — DO 017, s. 2026, Strengthened Senior High School Curriculum
- DepEd — Strengthened SHS curriculum guide, General Science (official PDF)
- DepEd — Strengthened SHS curriculum guide, Physics 1 (official PDF)
- SchoolFinderPH — Specialised Subjects by Strand
