MANILA — The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) is asking Congress to allocate an additional P72 million budget to expand its computerized licensure exams nationwide.

PRC commissioner Dr. Jose Cueto Jr. told the Senate finance committee on Friday the amount—which is not yet part of its proposed 2023 budget of P1.7 billion—would enable the PRC’s regional offices to follow Metro Manila in offering the computer-based exams.

The finance committee tackled the P25.9-billion budget of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), where the PRC is an attached agency.

“We started the computerized licensure exams last year with a small number of examinees because we had to do it first in our testing centers and we utilized one local area network,” Cueto said to Senate majority floor leader Sen. Joel Villanueva during the hearing.

“We still don’t have the capacity of conducting it in the rest of our regional offices. We need funding to set up the computerized licensure examinations in our regional offices.”

Cueto earlier told a House committee the additional budget would help them develop 6 regional offices, particularly in Calabarzon, Bicol, and Davao regions.

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Villanueva requested for additional data and info from Cueto following the hearing to see what can be done to address their request.

The PRC used an in-house system to successfully hold a computerized licensure exam for geologists in late December 202, which it then followed up with the exam for psychology.

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CATCH-UP

After holding only 11 exams in 2020 and 61 in 2021 due to lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Cueto said the PRC’s catch-up plan will result in a total of 95 licensure exams for 2022.

The PRC said it already administered 51 exams from January to August this year and is set to hold 44 in the last 4 months of the year.

“We are on track to dealing with the backlogs. We have graduates who were not able to take the licensure examinations in 2020 and 2021,” Cueto said.

The PRC targets to hold 84 licensure exams for 629,370 examinees in 2023.

Cueto added holding fewer board exams in 2021 resulted in P526.9 million of their budget remaining unspent that year.

“The unused appropriations came from the inability to conduct the licensure exams. As far as programs are concerned, the licensure program receives the biggest allocation as far as our budget is concerned. So if we are not able to conduct licensure examinations, the budget utilization ratio really goes down,” he said.

Sen. Francis Tolentino noted the PRC recorded the second-highest unused appropriations for 2021 in the DOLE’s budget.

He proposed the PRC look into exam apps or software to address the situation.

Next to the DOLE’s Office of the Secretary, the PRC had the 2nd biggest slash in its proposed 2023 budget, down by P123 million from its 2022 enacted budget.

UNUSED APPROPRIATIONS

Tolentino also flagged the DOLE’s unused and unobligated funds for 2021 amounting to P1.5 billion.

Nearly half of the amount, according to the agency, was supposed to be used for the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers or TUPAD program.

The program provided temporary wage employment to informal sector workers affected by calamities.

The DOLE said the unused funds have been carried forward to the succeeding year’s budget as continuing appropriations.

Labor secretary Bienvenido Laguesma assured senators the department will use all the funds in its upcoming budget correctly.

He said the DOLE has been working with its regional offices to allocate a portion of their budgets for quick assistance to those who would need them.

Laguesma added its programs are now focused on producing more permanent and secure jobs for Filipinos instead of creating temporary measures.

“Ang ating direksyon ay ‘yong employability ng ating mga manggagawa, kasama ang kabataan…Hindi po pwedeng pure recipient lang sila ng social welfare assistance or social protection assistance,” he said.