Anti-CPD professionals give 95% vote for repeal
AN online survey set up by the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) on its Facebook page on February 16, 2018 and set to end on the 20th is gathering a near unanimous vote for the repeal of the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Act of 2016, otherwise known as the Trillanes Law (RA 10912), with 95%.
The survey question posted is:
Do you agree on House Bill No. 7171 seeking to repeal CPD Law implementation?
Withy 76,000 votes already cast, 95% said "Yes. It should be stopped." Only 5% said, "No. Professionals need it."
HB No. 7171 was filed by Representatives Antonio Tinio and France Castro of the ACT Teachers Party-List to help abolish the controversial CPD Law.
In their explanatory note for the repeal of the CPD Act, the party-list congressmen wrote: "Since its enactment, RA 10912 has imposed multiple financial, logistical, and psychological burdens on professionals. It requires them to accumulate credit units (from 15 or 45 for most professionals to as high as 120 for certified public accountants) every three years by attending seminars, training courses, and other professional development activities. Only then can they renew their licenses and continue practicing their professions. Along the way, they are forced to spend thousands of pesos, take unpaid leaves from work, endure long queues, and go through a host of other hardships."
Before the Trillanes
Law, professional organizations themselves hold national conventions where they give out continuing education units to their members. But these are voluntary, and because of these, the professionals choose their subject of interest because of their drive to learn. Not because it is required for their license renewal.
Since the Trillanes Law, professionals had to deliberately attend these, outside their national and regional conventions, and taking time out of their professional service, just to earn points instead of earning expertise through the practice of their profession. Each seminar also costs each participant by the thousands of pesos, creating a profitable industry at the expense of the licensed professionals. sae