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FULL TEXT: Updates on the dialogue about the Continuing Professional Development Law held today, 20 October 2016:
Representatives from ACT Teachers Party-List including Congresswoman France Castro, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers-Philippines, and the ACT National Capital Region Union raised the following to the attention of officials of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC Commissioner Yolanda Reyes, CPD Program Manager Gerard Sanvictores, and Board of Professional Teachers Vice Chairperson Paz Lucido):
1. Continuing professional development is a right of all teachers and should therefore be provided by the government without additional burden and expense.
2. Representatives of the teaching profession should be consulted in the formulation of the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the CPD Law or Republic Act 10912 and the operational guidelines specific to the teaching profession. In line with this, the PRC and the BPT committed to (1) invite us in the consultations, (2) accept our position papers on the inclusion of safeguards for the protection of teachers, and (3) admit our nominations for membership into the CPD Council, which will formulate the operational guidelines for the teaching profession.
3. Programs of the DepEd already in place such as the in-service (INSET) and other trainings and seminars, as well as self-directed learning and seminars and activities of teachers' unions and organizations, should be recognized as credit-earning. This is so that teachers will no longer need to go outside of DepEd and their own organizations and pay for courses or offerings of private accredited entities.
4. ACT together with ACT Teachers Party-list, have registered the need to amend Republic Act 10912 and Republic Act No. 7836 (Philippine Teachers Professionalization Act of 1994) through legislation to review the validity and payment of Identification Card in favor of teachers and other professionals.
5. The PRC clarified that RA 10912 is effectively suspended until the issuance of the IRR and operational guidelines, targeted to be by 2017. Until then, the completion of units will not yet be required for teachers to continue practice.