The short answer
Since DepEd Order No. 003 took effect in February 2026, the Philippines has moved from principle to practice. Standardized AI use declaration language is circulating for teachers and students to disclose how they used AI in their work, the Q2 2026 in-service training modules built with MIT RAISE and Day of AI were scheduled to begin reaching teachers, and DepEd has publicly confirmed the guidelines will keep changing for at least three more years. This is not a new policy. It is the old one growing hands and feet.
In March, at the GovMedia Summit, DepEd assistant secretary Dexter Galban told a room of policy watchers something worth sitting with: the department will continue updating the AI guidelines over the next three years. Not revisit. Continue updating. For a school leader who read Order No. 003 in February and filed it under "policy, handled," that is the correction. It was never a finished document. It was a foundation, and foundations get built on.
What are the AI use declarations, and what do they actually require?
The clearest sign of that building is the emergence of standardized disclosure language for AI use, the kind of thing a teacher or student would attach to an assignment stating what AI tool was used and for what part of the work. Order No. 003 always required transparency in principle. What is new is that the principle now has a template attached to it.
This matters more than it sounds like it should. A policy that says "disclose your AI use" without a standard format produces seventeen different disclosure habits across seventeen different classrooms, which is functionally no policy at all. A shared declaration format is what turns a value into a habit a whole school can actually run.
One caution worth naming plainly: the declaration templates currently circulating have not been confirmed against DepEd's own issuance portal as an official annex to the order. Schools should treat them as a strong signal of where implementation is heading, not as binding text, until DepEd publishes something formal under its own name.
Where does the Q2 2026 teacher training rollout actually stand?
The in-service training modules for teachers, developed with MIT's RAISE initiative and the Day of AI program, were scheduled for rollout in the second quarter of 2026. This is the piece that turns "AI tools are approved" into "teachers know what to do with them." A registry of permitted tools is a procurement decision. A trained teacher is a classroom capability, and it is the harder of the two things to build.
The training sits inside the broader AI Ready ASEAN Philippines program, delivered as twelve capacity building sessions covering AI fundamentals, implementation, ethics and privacy, and how to teach about AI rather than just with it. That structure is a reasonable template for any ministry or school system watching from outside the Philippines and wondering where to start.
Did the AGAP.AI numbers change?
Slightly, and the direction is worth noting. The January 2026 launch figures targeted 1.05 million learners, 300,000 teachers, and 150,000 parents. By March, the public figures being cited had shifted to 1 million students, 300,000 teachers, and 250,000 parents, a larger parent-facing target and a small downward revision on learners. Numbers moving during a national rollout are ordinary. What is worth watching is whether the teacher figure, the one that determines classroom-level readiness, holds steady as the program scales.
What should school leaders do about this update?
Ask for the declaration format before you improvise one. If your school has already written its own AI disclosure language, check it against what DepEd eventually publishes officially rather than assuming your version is close enough. Divergent formats are exactly what a national standard exists to prevent.
Treat the Q2 training modules as a floor, not a ceiling. A twelve-session national program reaching 300,000 teachers will necessarily move at the pace of the slowest-resourced school in the system. Schools with the capacity to train faster and deeper should, using the same UNESCO AI Competency Framework for Teachers that underpins DepEd's approach.
Expect more updates, and build for that instead of resisting it. DepEd has said outright that the guidelines will keep changing for three years. A school that treats Order No. 003 as a one-time compliance task will be caught flat-footed at the next revision. A school that builds a standing process for reviewing AI policy, even a single person whose job includes tracking DepEd issuances, will not.
Frequently asked questions
Is DepEd Order No. 003 still in effect?
Yes. It remains the Philippines' foundational AI guideline for basic education, issued February 20, 2026. What has changed since is implementation detail, not the order itself.
What are AI use declarations in Philippine schools?
Standardized language for teachers and students to disclose how AI was used in a piece of work. Templates are circulating publicly, but schools should confirm official status with DepEd before treating them as binding.
When do the new AI teacher training modules start?
They were scheduled for rollout in the second quarter of 2026, developed with MIT RAISE and the Day of AI initiative as part of the broader AGAP.AI program.
Will DepEd change the AI guidelines again?
DepEd has publicly stated it will continue updating the guidelines over the next three years, so further revisions should be expected rather than treated as exceptional.
How many teachers has the AGAP.AI program reached so far?
The program targets 300,000 teachers as part of a wider rollout to over a million learners and parents. Public figures have shifted slightly since the January 2026 launch, and a hard completion number has not yet been published.
thegurucool builds teacher AI readiness through structured professional development aligned to the UNESCO AI Competency Framework for Teachers. The TEACH-AI framework develops 14 competencies across 7 domains, from first exposure to confident AI-era assessment design.