THE country’s professional licensure system should remain, despite the struggles of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) to hold these certification tests the past year due to the pandemic, because such assessments boost the credibility of Filipino professionals here and around the world, Senator Joel Villanueva said.
“Despite our disappointment with how the PRC has been failing our graduates with the way they’ve postponed and pushed back scheduled board exams since last year, it is very clear to us that the professional certification exams such as the various boards exam must remain,” Villanueva, chairman of the Senate labor committee, said on Thursday, in reaction to a proposal floated by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III to do away with licensure examination requirements for health workers.
Villanueva explained, “Our professionals won’t be able to practice their professions if they are not board-certified.”
The licensure test, stressed Villanueva, “is the final ‘quality control’ check before we allow graduates to practice a profession which depends on the lives of the people—like physicians—or safety of buildings, like engineers. If tech-voc graduates, like mechanics who fix cars, require Tesda certification, how much more for doctors who will repair hearts?”
Villanueva said he filed Senate Resolution No. 661 to help PRC identify alternative ways of conducting board exams amid the pandemic and the new normal, and not to abolish the commission. The lawmaker pointed out that under the PRC Modernization law of 2000, the commission was mandated to shift to full computerization of all licensure examinations by 2003.
“Computerization will also help disaster-proof our professional licensure system, as typhoons and floods often wreak havoc on testing schedules and sites,” he said.
Villanueva said the failed implementation of computerized board exams is now haunting the Graduating Class of 2020, after the pandemic forced the government to implement restrictions on movement, thus affecting the conduct of licensure exams.
“We think there is a lot of room for improvement for the PRC, and to address the problems, we need to evaluate suggestions. If our professional regulatory laws need amending, we’re ready to buckle down to work,” Villanueva said.
Villanueva reacted to the statement of Labor Secretary Bello, who later clarified that he only called to study the proposal.
“We fully agree with the sentiment of Secretary Bello that urgent reforms are needed to make licensure exams more accessible to takers. But we cannot totally remove the certifying process because it will be unfair to our people, and is a betrayal of their trust, as they expect their government to test the knowledge of these professionals if they are indeed qualified to practice,” Villanueva said.
However, he warned, “The repercussions of this proposal, if adopted, will also harm the OFW brand, as many of them were able to land jobs abroad because of a good reputation of having been properly certified.”
Nonetheless, licensure examination is but one wheel in the big cog of Philippine Qualifications Framework, explained Villanueva, the principal author of the PQF law or Republic Act 10968. The framework sets multiple criteria that measures quality assurance principles and standards of the Filipino professional, technician and craftsman.
“This is the assessment system that gives a full picture of the competencies of our professionals, a portable certification of talents accepted in many countries,” Villanueva said.
In making his pitch to the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), Bello said more health care workers (HCW), particularly nurses, still want to work abroad during the Covid-19 crisis.
The labor chief said a nurse should already be allowed to work after graduating from school accredited by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) after already going “through so much exams.”
But, he noted, such reform would have to be legislated since professional laws require such licensure exams.