Once again, a group of lawmakers in Congress filed a bill pushing for the repeal of the controversial Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Law.
Solons under the Makabayan group submitted House Bill No. 510 or the “Act Repealing Republic Act 10912 otherwise Known as the Continuing Professional Development Act of 2016” in the 18th Congress. The bill authors include ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France L. Castro, Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate, Rep. Ferdinand Gaite, Rep. Eufemia Cullamat, Gabriela Women’s Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas and Kabataan Party-list Sarah Jane Elago.
CPD Law requires professionals under the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) to earn continuing education units for renewal of their license of Professional Identification Cards (PIC). Lawmakers have received countless complaints against the law and its implementation.
In its explanatory note, the authors called the CPD Law as ‘anti-professional’ and merely followed ‘neoliberal economic blueprint fully subscribed to by the past and the current administration.’
While the CPD Law was aimed to respond to the ASEAN’s requirement for integration and labor migration, they added that it only leads to Filipino workers being exported like ‘cheap providers of professional services.’
“The requirement for professionals to conform to the market-based ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework which ‘enables comparisons of qualifications across ASEAN Member States’ and the ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement promotes further the labor export policy, which already sends daily thousands of Filipinos, professionals among them,” authors said in explanatory note.
“Since its enactment, RA 10912 has imposed multiple financial, logistical and psychological burdens to professionals…Along the way, they are forced to spend thousands of pesos, take unpaid leaves from work, withstand long queues, and go through a host of other hardships,” they added.
CPD Law is ‘unnecessary law’ as there are already existing laws, regulations, charters that govern all 53 professions, the authors concluded.
Last year, some senators also pushed for the repeal of CPD Law but it did not push through. They eventually made amendments to the implementing rules and regulations which lowered the required units and exempted overseas Filipino workers and new professionals.
