Senator Lito Lapid wants to exempt qualified indigent Filipinos from the payment of professional licensure examination fees.
In filing Senate Bill (SB) No. 32, Lapid aims to further help the Filipino youth following the passage of the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act during the previous Duterte administration. While students are now able to obtain a college degree for free, some of them have to pay for professional licensure examinations upon their graduation.
"The fees range from P500 for civil service eligibility examinations with the Civil Service Commission to P600 for non-baccalaureate degree examinations with the Professional Regulatory Commission to P10,000 for the bar examinations," Lapid lamented in his explanatory note.
In some instances, Lapid said graduates just delay taking examinations to be able to save money first, which in turn "diminishes the momentum they gained from the academe, making it more difficult for them to pass."
Under the bill, an examinee who wants to be exempted from the examination fee shall secure a certificate of indigency from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
Such certification shall be presented to the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC), the Civil Service Commission (CSC) or the Supreme Court (SC) of the Philippines, in lieu of the payment of examination fees.