President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday that Continuing Professional Development (CPD) law, which requires Filipino professionals to gain additional learning before license renewal, “must end.”
During his fifth State of the Nation Address (SONA), the President expressed he wanted to repeal the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Act of 2016 (Republic Act 10912). Duterte’s top critic Antonio Trillanes IV authored the CPD law.
“In this time of great pandemic and forthcoming reconstruction, requiring our professionals to undergo seminars is burdensome and not realistic. This must end,” Duterte said.
“May mga profession na they would require—I think it’s the nurses— they would require them to come to Manila to retrain and for another round of expenses. Itong mga seminar-seminar na ito dapat mahinto [these seminars should stop],” he added.
Iligan City Representative and House Committee on Civil Service and Professional Regulation Frederick Siao and chairman, meanwhile, assured Duterte that they would work to amend the deficiencies of the said law.
“The PRC and the professional boards should be able to distill to the essential elements the necessities for professional updating,” Siao said.
The lawmaker earlier proposed a suspension of CPD training for three to five years.
“Then after the suspension, new and lightweight CPD updating programs must be in place,” he said.
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Duterte wants to end Continuing Professional Development law
Presidential son and House Deputy Speaker Paolo Duterte in March said he would file a bill to repeal the CPD law.
Paolo Duterte called the “Continuing Professional Development Act of 2016” of R.A. 10912 “uncalled for” and “anti-professional.” The law requires all professionals to earn CPD units through seminars and training before they could renew their Professional Identification Card.
“This CPD law is uncalled for. To address this, we will file a bill repealing this anti-professional measure introduced by Trillanes,” Duterte said in a statement.
The law “refers to the inculcation of advanced knowledge, skills, and ethical values in a post-licensure specialization or in an inter- or multidisciplinary field of study, for assimilation into professional practice, self-directed research and/or lifelong learning.”
“While we support the lifelong learning among our professionals to further their craft, the requirements set by the CPD law just adds to the burden they have to deal with,” Paolo Duterte said.