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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Poor Pinoys need not pay for licensure exam fees if Duterte bill gets enacted

Poor Pinoys need not pay for licensure exam fees if Duterte bill gets enacted

Published Jul 27, 2023 10:12 am
Davao City 1st district Rep. Paolo Duterte (Facebook)




Davao City 1st district Rep. Paolo Duterte is seeking legislation that would waive Bar and other licensure exam fees for qualified indigent Filipinos. This proposal is embodied in House Bill (HB) No.4927, or the proposed Act providing for free professional examinations to qualified indigents. The measure, filed in the current 19th Congress by Duterte and Benguet lone district Rep. Eric Go Yap, aims to provide such benefit to graduates from poor families “in order to level the playing field amongst all future professional examination takers". “Since the sole purpose of licensure examinations is to determine whether one has enough knowledge and experience to perform his or her chosen profession, being unable to pay the licensure exam fees should not be a barrier for any exam taker,” the authors said. With the start of the Congress’ second regular session last July 24, Duterte and Yap urged their colleagues in the House of Representatives to swiftly act on the bill so that it could soon benefit indigents who will take the licensure examinations administered by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) and the Civil Service Commission (CSC), and the Bar examinations conducted by the Supreme Court (SC). The PRC currently charges between P450 to P1,050 for takers of the various licensure examinations it administers in the fields of health, business, education, social sciences, engineering and technology. For the CSC, the fee for the Career Service Examination for Professional and Sub-Professional Levels is P500. Meanwhile, the non-refundable Bar application fee as of this year is P12,800. Duterte said these fees add to the financial burden of graduates who also  have to shell out money for  even higher expenses to review for the board exams. Under HB No.4927, “qualified indigents” refer to “persons with no visible means of income or support, or whose income may not be sufficient for the subsistence or basic needs of his family, as may be determined by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)". The bill requires an applicant to secure a certification as a qualified indigent from the DSWD to be able to take the licensure examinations free of charge. The waived licensure exam fee may be availed by the qualified indigent only once a year.

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