• Congresswoman, Dr
Anna York Bondoc,
• Hon. Commissioner
Yolanda Reyes,
• Hon. PRB
Chair Miriam Cue,
and PRB members
Hon Imelda Villar
and Hon Alexa
Abrenica,
• Dr Angela
Regala, President of PAP and
all PAP officers
and directors,
• Distinguished guests,
• Our new
professional psychometricians and
psychologists,
I wish
to extend my
warmest congratulations to
all those who
passed the first
ever board exams
for psychometricians and
for psychologists, and
to all the
other professional psychologists
and psychometricians taking
their oath today.
The passage
of R.A. 10029
or The Philippine
Psychology Act of
2009 ushered in
a new stage
in the development
of the psychology
profession in the
Philippines, with the
national government regulating
the practice of
psychometricians and psychologists. This
act that regulates
our profession is a clear
statement of how
our nation’s leaders
recognize the important
role of psychometricians and
psychologists in nation
building. We should
bear in mind
that the Philippines
is presently the
only Asian country
where the government
recognizes and regulates
the profession of
psychology. And in
a recent meeting
of heads of ASEAN psychology
societies, the Philippine
Psychology Act was
closely studied by
our ASEAN neighbors;
and for this
the Philippine psychology
community should be
proud of this
significant and historic
milestone of Philippine psychology.
Now, YOU
are part of
this milestone. Or
let me correct
that. Your passing
the first board
exams for psychometricians and
for psychologists is
a new milestone
in this milestone.
Although there are
a good number
of psychometricians and
psychologists who have
been licensed without
examination even before
you took the
board exam, there
is something truly
extraordinary in your
taking part in
the board exam.
For one, it demonstrates how
foolishly courageous you
are! While many
others chose to
wait it out,
and see how
the first exam
goes, you took
a big risk
and went ahead
(some would say
crazily) into unknown
territory. So I
salute you not
only for passing,
but also for
your extraordinary courage.
But more
importantly, your taking
the exam is
a bellwether of
a permanent change
in the landscape
of psychology in
the Philippines. The
permanent change involves
a concerted effort
to improve psychology
education and teaching,
upgrading the standards
of professional and
ethical practice, all of which
would contribute to the continuous
growth of psychology
as a respected
scientific discipline and
profession in our
country. Your passing
the exam and
your taking the
oath today means
that there is
no turning back
to the progress
in the professionalization of
psychology in the
country. Today’s event
signals to all
members and stakeholders
of the Philippine
psychology community that
we psychologists take
our profession seriously,
and we cherish
our various responsibilities in
our different communities
and societies.
But let
us consider what
this all means.
What does it
mean to be
a registered psychometrician or
registered psychologist? What
does it mean
to be charged
to execute our
responsibilities as licensed
professionals? For some
of us, they
will reduce this
achievement to tangibles
– the PRC
pin, the professional
ID card with
the registration number,
the letters that
they can add
to their professional
titles (RPM, RPSY),
which were obtained
after filling up
documents, photocopying them,
signing these, affixing
the thumb marks,
cueing in many
lines, making several
payments, and so
on. These tangibles
of being a
registered professional are
important because of
what they represent.
And I hope
you value what
they represent more
than the pin,
those letters after
your name, and
the ID with
your registration number.
Let me
share with you
what I think
this professional registration
means. In essence,
your professional registration
as psychometrician or
psychologist means that
you are now
part of a community of
Filipino psychologists. Who is in
that community? That’s
the person sitting
next to you
and across you.
That also includes
your former professors
who were previously
licensed without examination
(although let’s assume
they would have
also passed the
exam if they
took it). The
community also includes
your colleagues, your
former colleagues, and
all your future
colleagues in the
various professional fields
of psychology. The
community would also
include psychometricians and
psychologists in various
provinces and regions
of the country,
working in clinics,
hospitals, schools, community
centers, organizations, and so on.
The community often
comes together in
the Psychological Association
of the Philippines,
whose members and
leaders are also
part of the
community.
Now that
may all sound
rather obvious, so
let me give
you a bit
of an historical
background about this
community and why
it sought to
be recognized as
a regulated profession.
The first attempt
to get Filipino
psychologists registered was in the
early 1980s in
the last years
of Martial Law,
in was called
the Batasang Pambansa.
The motivation for
this was a
threat. There was
word that the
Philippine Medical Association
wanted to restrict
the provision of
psychotherapy and other
mental health interventions
to licensed medical
professionals.
Unfortunately, that initial
attempt to enact
a law to
regulate the practice
of psychology did
not prosper; and
it did not
prosper for another
25 years or
so. But fortunately,
the Philippine psychology
community was left
to do its
own unregulated thing.
What galvanized
the Philippine psychology
community again was
yet another threat.
The passage of
the Philippine Guidance
and Counseling Act
in 2004 threatened
the practice of
many Filipino psychometricians and
psychologists, as the
IRR of that
law restricted the
provision of services
such as counseling
and psychological testing
to licensed guidance
counselors. I remember
the anger and
the frustration when
our colleagues in
the guidance counseling
profession were telling
trained psychologists that
they cannot do
psychological testing; and
telling us, “You
will be fired,”
and worse, we
were told, “You
will be put
to jail because
that is the
law.” Fortunately, no
one was put
to jail, although
some did lose
their jobs. I
tell you this
history not to
speak badly of
guidance counselors, who
to this day
are our important
partners in the
mental health community.
I tell you
this history because
the Philippine psychology
community, organized by
the Psychological Association
of the Philippines
responded most positively
to this threat,
to what could
be seen as
some form of
bullying of the
entire profession. Yes,
we were angry;
we were frustrated;
we had to
shout, scream, and
vent our frustrations
somehow. But we
were not hopeless;
we did not
cower; we did
not surrender. Instead
the leaders of
our community strategized,
developed many alternative
plans, and forged
new alliances.
Fortunately we
found allies, in
persons like Cong.
Anna York Bondoc.
We also learned
to tentatively resolve
differences within our
community. We came
together in our
own haphazard way.
We responded positively
as a community,
and the Psychology
Bill became the
Psychology Act, and
fast forward... we
are here today.
Here we
are today, a
community that has
perhaps reluctantly come
together as THE
community of professional
psychologists in the
Philippines. We are
still a community
with internal conflicts;
there are still
issues that we
all do not
agree; and there
will be other
concerns, big and
small, that will
challenge our community
in the future.
But the milestone
of RA10029, and
the milestone of
your oath-‐taking today
tells us that
we CANNOT ever
let any issue
divide our community
again, because we
saw what good
can come from
uniting together as one psychology
community. As a
community, we should
strive to find
solutions and forge
compromises regarding problems
and issues that
will confront us
in the future. RA10029
not only recognizes
the important role
of psychometricians and
psychologist for nation
building. More importantly,
RA10029 articulates a
clear mandate for
all psychometricians and
psychologists to actively
take part in
these processes of
building communities, organizations, programs,
and of building
and helping people.
To realize
this mandate, all
registered psychometricians and
psychologists are called
upon to actively
engage this community.
Do not take
your PRC ID
and then just
do your own
thing, thinking that
you now have
the license to
do just that,
your own thing.
Part of the
mandate of RA10029
is call to
professional citizenship. You are citizens
of this professional
community, and there
are certain values
and expectations that
should guide our
professional citizenship. There
are many values,
but I would
like to emphasize
just three value
pairs this afternoon,
three pairs of
values which I
know are very
closely related to
each other: ethics
and professionalism, excellence
and cultivation, and
empathy and responsiveness.
First, all
licenses are governed
by ethical codes.
Psychologists in the
Philippines had ethical
guidelines even before
RA10029. Part of
your professional citizenship
is to know
the general principles
and the specific
guidelines of this
code of ethics.
But this part
of your professional
citizenship cannot be
a simple cognitive
understanding of the
document; instead, a
good professional citizen
of the Philippine
psychology community lives
and breathes the
provisions of this
code of ethics,
advocates the code
of ethics in
all venues and
forums, and calls
attention to breaches
of the code
when confronted by
such. It is in your
advocacy and exemplification of
the provisions of
this code that you
become the ethical
professional psychologist. Ethics
and professionalism.
Part of
the code of
ethics refers to
competencies – that
it is unethical
for a psychologist
to provide services
and undertake professional
acts for which
he/she does not
have the appropriate
training and competence.
The board exams
that you just
passed assures as
that you meet
minimum competencies to
provide psychological services.
But let us
keep in mind that the
science of our
profession is growing
in leaps and
bounds; new theories,
interventions, tools and
techniques are proposed
and studied constantly.
As such, it is the
responsibility of a
good professional citizen
of the Philippine
psychology community to
constantly cultivate his/her
knowledge and skills
as a psychology
professional. The fact
that you passed
the board exam
should not be
a license for
you to say
you know enough;
instead, the fact
that you passed
the board exam
means that you
know enough to
start learning more
and more. Excellence
and cultivation.
Why do
we need to
have such high
aspirations and to
continuously cultivate our
skills? Because we
have communities, organizations, and
people we serve.
And very simply,
we cannot fail
them -‐-‐ but
that is such
an avoidant position.
As a community
of professional psychologists
our goal
should not be
just to avoid
failing our stakeholders.
Instead our goal
is to provide
the best that
the fast growing
science and profession
of psychology has
to offer to
our stakeholders, because
we care about
our stakeholders. We
want our communities
to thrive, we
want the organizations we
serve to meet
their high aspirations,
and we want
the individuals we
help to solve
their problems and
to flourish. Excellence
and cultivation is
not a personal
conceit. We strive
to be better
because we empathize
with the plight
of our stakeholders,
and we want
to be responsive
to their needs.
We do not
serve our stakeholders
with a high
sense of self-‐ importance; instead
we subordinate the
esteem we have
as professionals to
help our stakeholders
attain their important
goals.
Also remember,
that our stakeholders’
goals are defined
within a rather
problematic society; a
society that experiences
vast social inequalities
and injustices, where
opportunities for growth
and personal development
are not equally
distributed, where individuals,
families, and organizations face
numerous stressors and
risks, where many
people voices are
silenced by oppressive
structures in our
social system, where
many people in
the margins have
not found their
voices at all
– AND where highly educated
psychometricians and psychologists
like you are
among the privileged.
We can make
a difference in
the lives of
others, if we
chose to, with
empathy and responsiveness, with
excellence and cultivation,
guided by ethics
and professionalism.
Three value
pairs that I hope will
be your guide
in your journey
of good professional
citizenship; a journey
that “officially” begins
today with your
oath – a
journey that you
will begin with
a strong sense
of pride. Yes,
you should be
very proud of
your significant role
in touching the
future of Philippine
psychology. But that
role is not
limited to your
activities in today’s
celebration. That role
in touching the
future of Philippine
psychology is a
lifelong role. Because
you should remember
that your achievement
that we celebrate
today is also
your mandate to
serve the profession
and the community
to the best
of your ability.
I hope that you do
not disappoint the
leaders of the
psychology profession who
are witnesses to
your oath taking
today. I hope
you do not
disappoint our advocates
like Dr Anna
Bondoc and the
other former leaders
of the PAP
who have worked
hard to get
us where we
are now. Instead,
I hope you
become exemplars of
professional citizenship, and in your
becoming so, you
are truly helping
build a stronger
community of Philippine
psychologists that is
more united even
amid its diversity,
a community that
will not only
act when it
is threatened, but
will be proactive
and animated in
being a force
for a good
and just society.
You will hopefully
be a very
outstanding citizen of
the professional community
of Filipino psychologists
that serves its
lawful mandate with
utmost conviction.
When you
all take your
oath this afternoon,
you will be
changed. But more
importantly, remember
that you are
now licensed to
be agents of
change for the
people you work
for. For me
that is a
most exciting thought.
And so I
have to congratulate
you all once
more, and invite
you to form
and reform our
Philippine psychology community,
and together, let
us touch the
future and make
it better.
Allan B. I.
Bernardo
9 December 2014
PICC, Manila
Video courtesy of Lea Katrine Sabilla
