Schools generate human capital—losses there compound over years
When a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off Sarangani province on June 8, it did not merely crack walls and shatter windows — it exposed a quiet, systemic failure decades in the making. Nearly 8,650 schools across Mindanao were damaged just as a new school year was beginning, displacing close to five million students and revealing that the Philippines' education infrastructure absorbs an estimated $299.6 million in annual earthquake losses — a burden nearly double that of the entire power sector. The disaster is a confirmation, not a surprise: a nation built in one of the world's most seismically active regions has long accepted a risk it has yet to fully reckon with.
- A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck off Sarangani province at the worst possible moment — the eve of a new school year — killing 37 people and injuring 479 while crippling classrooms across six Mindanao regions.
- Nearly five million students and over 156,000 teachers and staff were suddenly without functioning schools, making this one of the largest single-event education disruptions in recent Philippine history.
- Data scientists warn this is not an anomaly: Philippine schools face $299.6 million in expected earthquake losses every year, placing education second only to buildings among the country's most disaster-exposed sectors.
- Unlike a damaged power plant or road, a damaged school destroys something irreplaceable in the short term — instructional time, learning continuity, and the human capital that compounds across a student's lifetime.
- Authorities are now assessing which of the thousands of damaged schools can reopen quickly and which require full reconstruction, while millions of students face compressed curricula and widening learning gaps that may take years to close.
On the morning of June 8, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Maasim in Sarangani province, damaging nearly 8,650 schools across Mindanao just as the school year was about to begin. Across six regions — from Zamboanga Peninsula to the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region — close to five million students and more than 156,000 teachers and staff found themselves without functioning classrooms. The earthquake killed 37 people and injured 479, but the disruption to education signaled a vulnerability far larger than the event itself.
Dr. Alicor Panao, a data scientist and associate professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman, used global infrastructure risk data to calculate what this vulnerability costs the country annually: approximately $299.6 million in expected earthquake losses to schools alone. That figure makes education the second most exposed sector in the Philippines, behind only buildings. For context, the power sector faces $164.2 million in annual expected losses; roads and railways together account for $95.4 million; telecommunications, $75.1 million. Schools absorb nearly double the earthquake risk of the entire power grid.
What distinguishes school damage from other infrastructure damage is what schools produce. A power plant, once rebuilt, resumes its function. A school, once damaged, interrupts something far harder to restore: the steady accumulation of knowledge and capability across a generation. Panao stressed that indirect losses — foregone learning, reduced attainment, diminished lifetime earnings — can far exceed the cost of physical repairs. A student who loses months of instruction does not simply pick up where they left off.
The full measure of this earthquake's impact on education will unfold over months and years, as administrators determine which schools can reopen and how to recover lost instructional time for millions of learners. What the disaster made undeniable is what the data had long been showing: the Philippines has built its education system in one of the world's most seismically active regions, on infrastructure that was never designed to withstand it. Each earthquake is less a surprise than a confirmation of a risk the nation has yet to fully confront.
On the morning of June 8, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Maasim in Sarangani province, and by the time the tremors had stopped, nearly 8,650 schools across Mindanao lay damaged or compromised. The timing was brutal: the school year was about to begin. Across six regions—Zamboanga Peninsula, Northern Mindanao, Davao Region, Soccsksargen, Caraga, and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao—nearly 5 million students and over 156,000 teachers and staff suddenly found themselves without functioning classrooms. The Department of Education's count, finalized by Monday, revealed the scale of the disruption: 4.9 million learners displaced from school.
But the immediate damage, severe as it was, pointed to something larger. Dr. Alicor Panao, a data scientist and associate professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman, looked at the earthquake not as an isolated disaster but as evidence of a systemic vulnerability that had been quietly accumulating across the nation's education system. Using data from the Global Infrastructure Risk Model and Resilience Index, compiled by the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, Panao calculated what the Philippines actually pays for this vulnerability each year: approximately $299.6 million in expected earthquake losses to schools alone.
That figure places education as the second most exposed sector in the country, trailing only buildings at $1.55 billion. But the comparison to other critical infrastructure reveals how disproportionate the burden on schools truly is. The power sector faces $164.2 million in annual expected losses. Roads and railways together account for $95.4 million. Telecommunications infrastructure sits at $75.1 million. Water systems, $38.1 million. Schools, in other words, face nearly double the annual earthquake risk of the entire power sector and more than three times that of telecommunications. The vulnerability is not marginal. It is structurally significant to how the nation manages disaster risk.
What makes school damage distinct from damage to other infrastructure is the nature of what schools produce. A damaged power plant can be rebuilt and resume function. A damaged school disrupts something far less tangible but far more consequential: the accumulation of human knowledge and capability across a generation. When a classroom goes dark, instructional time vanishes. Learning gets compressed. Students fall behind in ways that are difficult to recover. Unlike most infrastructure, where reconstruction restores function, schools generate human capital—and losses there compound over years.
Panao emphasized that the economic cost extends well beyond the physical repairs needed. Indirect losses from education disruption—the learning foregone, the opportunities missed, the reduced attainment that follows—can exceed direct damage by a multiple of several times. A student who loses months of instruction does not simply resume where they left off once the school reopens. The gap widens. The cumulative effect shapes lifetime earnings and capability. This is not a cost that reconstruction budgets typically capture.
The June earthquake killed 37 people and injured 479. But the true measure of its impact on education will emerge over months and years, as administrators assess which schools can reopen, which require extensive rebuilding, and how to compress learning for millions of students who have already lost time. The disaster revealed what the data had been saying all along: the Philippines has built a system of education that sits in one of the world's most seismically active regions, with infrastructure that was never designed to withstand the forces that regularly strike. Until that changes, each earthquake will be not a surprise but a confirmation of a risk the nation has chosen to accept.
Notable Quotes
These disruptions are part of a measurable pattern of infrastructure vulnerability that systematically affects education.— Dr. Alicor Panao, data scientist and associate professor at University of the Philippines Diliman
Each disrupted classroom means lost instructional time, compressed learning, and cumulative setbacks that are difficult to recover.— Dr. Alicor Panao
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When you say schools face $300 million in annual losses, does that mean they're actually losing that much money every year, or is it a projection of what could happen?
It's a projection—an expected value based on historical earthquake patterns and structural vulnerability. Think of it like insurance actuaries calculating risk. It doesn't mean $300 million walks out the door annually, but rather that over time, the Philippines should expect to lose roughly that amount to earthquakes in its schools.
So if the power sector faces $164 million in expected losses, why is education nearly double that? What makes schools more vulnerable?
Schools are typically older, more densely packed, and built to lower standards than power infrastructure. But the deeper issue is that there are so many of them—8,642 in Mindanao alone—spread across the entire archipelago. You can't harden every school the way you might protect a critical power facility.
The article mentions that learning losses are harder to recover than physical damage. Can you explain what that means practically?
If a power plant is damaged, you rebuild it and it works again. But if a student loses six months of math instruction, you can't just restart them where they left off. They've fallen behind their peers. That gap compounds—they struggle with the next unit, then the next. By the time they graduate, they've lost years of cumulative learning. That shapes their entire future.
Is there a way to measure that long-term cost?
Not precisely, but economists estimate indirect losses from education disruption can be three to five times the cost of the physical damage itself. A collapsed school building costs millions to rebuild. But the lost wages and reduced productivity of millions of students over their lifetimes costs billions.
What would it take to actually reduce that $300 million annual risk?
Retrofitting existing schools to meet seismic standards, building new ones to higher codes, and spreading schools geographically so one earthquake doesn't affect as many at once. But that requires sustained investment and political will. It's easier to rebuild after a disaster than to prevent one.