Haze has driven air quality into the unhealthy range at three monitoring stations in the Davao Region, the Philippine News Agency reported on Monday, September 21, 2026.
The same haze has disrupted schools elsewhere in the country. In Cebu, in-person classes were suspended again because of the conditions, according to Inquirer.net. The Manila Times described air quality in Cebu as "acutely unhealthy," while SunStar Publishing Inc. reported that the haze kept students out of classrooms.
Philstar.com traced the problem to forest fires in Indonesia, saying the resulting haze has affected both the Visayas and Mindanao.
The Philippine News Agency did not specify which three stations recorded unhealthy readings, nor did it give the pollutant levels measured at those sites. It also did not say how long the conditions are expected to last.
The reports point to a cross-border cause: smoke from fires in Indonesia drifting over Philippine territory. That framing matches the accounts from Philstar.com, which attributed the Visayas and Mindanao haze to those fires, and from the Philippine News Agency, which tied the Davao Region readings to the same event.
What to watch next: whether the Philippine News Agency or local authorities release station-level air quality figures for the Davao Region, and whether class suspensions spread beyond Cebu as the haze persists.
