Published July 7, 2018 4:41pm 

By MARGARET CLAIRE LAYUG, GMA News

Senator Leila de Lima has filed a bill proposing a maximum of 36 credit units as a requisite for license renewal for 41 professions for every three-year compliance period.

According to a release from her office on Saturday, De Lima filed Senate Bill No. 1853 seeking an amendment to Republic Act No. 10912, also known as the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Act of 2016.

The CPD Act was sponsored by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV to institute measures aimed to improve the competence of professionals in accordance with international standards of practice.

“What was originally a well-meaning legislation has turned out to be a costly bureaucratic nightmare for both the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) and the licensed professionals,” the senator said.

De Lima noted that under the current measure, professionals are required to take as many as 45 to 120 units for every three years just to renew their license and practice their profession.

Under SB No. 1853, De Lima proposed that the PRC can only require a maximum of 36 credit units each for 41 professions in the hopes of alleviating the "burden" of some licensed and registered professionals.

“This bill provides a cap for the CPD credit units which may be required by the PRC in order to moderate the burden upon the professionals who are already serving our country by practicing their professions for the benefit of our countrymen,” she said.

Aside from some CPD programs being "costly," De Lima noted that some professionals tend to skip work just to attend training, gather required documents, and undertake other needed activities just to have their units credited.

“That translates to added costs for professionals who will lose income opportunities just to navigate through the bureaucratic processes required by the present law,” she said.

“To impose too heavy a burden on the CPD credit units upon them [professionals] is tantamount to a significant deprivation of their income,” De Lima added.

De Lima noted that reducing the required units to 36 would also benefit the government which, she said, suffers from the same dilemma as professionals, citing the cost of requiring staff to process accreditation and verification of submitted documents.

“On the part of the government, implementing this program represent a high cost in terms of providing the personnel who will process the accreditation and verification of required documentation," De Lima said.

"By simplifying the process we can minimize the cost for our taxpayers,” she added. — MDM, GMA News