Top 10 Must Know About Philippine Psychology Act of 2009

2013-03-04
By Sir Jason

1. The Law is effective now!

And not just now but since June 2, 2010, RA 10029 is already a working and enforceable law that affects the whole
psychology field in the Philippines. The Philippine Psychology Act of 2009 was a consolidation of two bills namely
Senate Bill No. 3498 and House Bill No. 6512 and the Act was approved on March 16, 2010. So you might ask,
whats the big deal? Well, the provisions of the law is already effective such that everyone who performs
psychological services should be licensed. No one can call themselves psychologist or Psychometrician without being
registered and having the license. But dont worry, the Psychology Regulatory Board (PRB) gives a leeway period of
3 years for qualified professionals to register without taking the exams. For those who cant qualify for the
grandfathers clause, they need to take the board exam.

2. What do you mean by Psychological Services?

Every professional has their own scope of practice. For the psychology field in the Philippines it is called under the
umbrella term of psychological services. To make it simple, psychological services includes psychological
interventions, assessment, evaluation, and psychological programs. There are a lot of functions that can be categorized
under these services and you should consult the latest Implementing Rules and Regulation of the RA 10029 to see
whether your job description falls under one of these psychological services.
Take note that teaching psychology subjects and doing research is not covered by the Law. But another law (i.e. RA
8981) specifically requires professors and lecturers of subjects covered by the board examination to be licensed
professionals. So for example, professors of experimental psychology and social psychology do not need a license but
those teaching theories of personality, abnormal psychology, industrial psychology, and psychological assessment
may be required to get their license to qualify to teach the subjects.
The following listed in Section 3b of IRR are under psychological services. You need to have a license if your job
description falls under one of these:

Psychological counseling

Psychological consultation

Psychotherapy

Psychosocial support

Life coaching

Psychological debriefing

Group processes

Psychological assessment, testing, evaluation

Development, standardization, and publication of psychological tests which measures adjustment and

psychopathology
Creation of assessment tools primarily for psycho-diagnostic purposes
Use of individual tests, projective tests, clinical interviews, and other psychological assessment tools

Assessing psychological functions such as:

cognitive abilities
aptitudes
personality characteristics
attitudes
values
interests
emotions and motivations
Making diagnostic interpretations, reports, and recommendations as part of:
case study
diagnostic screening
placement
management decisions
psychiatric evaluation
legal action
psychological counseling
psychotherapy or change intervention
Development, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of:
psychological treatment programs
play therapy
expressive arts therapy
music therapy
trauma healing
addiction rehabilitation and treatment programs
behavioral management and intervention in correctional facilities
psychological training programs which involves inner processing
mental health programs in disaster and emergency situations

3. Two Professionals, One Law

Yes thats right. The Law covers two professionals who performs two related psychological services. Those who
administer and interpret personality tests, interpret results, prepare reports and clinical interviews are called
Psychometricians while those who are allowed to perform the whole range of psychological services are called
Psychologists. In simplest terms, psychometricians can only do psychological assessment (except projective and
higher level tests) and psychologist can do all psychological services including the functions of the psychometricians.
In addition to this, the psychometrician should be at all times supervised by a psychologist. Also, all assessment report
done by the psychometrician should bear the signature of the supervising psychologist. The Law nor the IRR did not
specify if a company/institution should hire a psychologist-psychometrician tandem or a company can have the
supervising psychologist as an on-call service. But whatever the organizational setup it might be, one thing is clear.
These professionals should be licensed before they can perform their psychological services.

4. Check first if you can register without taking the board exam
Save yourself from being a student again and investing time, money, and effort in preparing for the board exam. The
Law is friendly to those who are qualified to be licensed without taking the exam. This is commonly termed as the
Grandfathers clause. Section 16 and 17 of the IRR specifies the grandfathers clause criteria for the psychologists
and psychometricians.
Generally, you should have the necessary work experience and academic requirements on or before June 2, 2010
before you can be grandfathered. For psychologists, either you have a doctoral degree with 3 years experience OR
masters degree with 5 years experience, OR a bachelors degree with 10 years experience. Note that your experience
should be titled as Psychologist and this should be reflected in your certificate of employment. If your job title is
not psychologist you are not qualified for grandfathers clause despite doing psychological services. For
psychometricians, you need to have a bachelors degree in psychology and minimum of 2 years full-time work
experience as a psychometrician. Then again, your job title in the certificate of employment should be
psychometrician to qualify for the grandfathers clause for psychometricians.
Remember that you can only register without taking the exam until May 21, 2015. Please refer to the specific
documentary requirements that you need to prepare before submitting your application to the PRB.

5. There will be a board exam for aspiring psychologists and

psychometricians
In the most altruistic sense, the purpose of the Law is to professionalize the psychology field in the Philippines. It
aims to define the scope of practice for the psychology professionals so that we know what makes them unique from
the other helping professions. But practically, the Law serves as the basic guideline for regulating these two
professionals by means of a state administered board examination. This is the most basic way of ensuring the quality
of the professionals who will render psychological services to the public.
If you are not qualified to be grandfathered, you need to consider taking the board exams. There are separate exams
for psychologists and psychometricians as well as separate qualifications that needs to be fulfilled. For psychologists,
you need to have a masters degree in psychology and 200 hours of supervised practicum reflected in your certificate
of practicum. For psychometricians, the only academic requirement is a bachelors degree in psychology. No need for
practicum for psychometricians. However, both field should have the psychology as their primary title in their
degree, regardless of the arts or science designation. For example, those who finished Masters in Education major in
Psychology are NOT allowed since its primary title is Education.
As early as now you need to prepare for the necessary documentary requirements needed for application. The
following were excerpted from the IRR:

NSO birth certificate

Original and certified true copy of Transcript of Records with your picture. Ask your registrar to give you a TOR for

board exam purposes with your picture printed in the TOR. Also, the TOR should have the Special Order number
printed. If your school is exempted from issuing SO number, you need to get from your registrar the Certificate of
Authentication and Validation from CHED.
Original and photocopy of NBI clearance
Three (3) notarized certificates of good moral character preferably from your employer, school, church leader,

baranggay captain.
2 colored passport size pictures with white background and name tag
Cedula (be sure the year is the same from the time you file to PRC)

In addition for aspiring psychologists, you need to submit a certificate of practicum and a certificate of mental health
fitness from a psychiatrist or licensed clinical psychologist. Both of these certificates should be notarized.

6. The 4 test subjects

These 4 test subjects are very important because the application process and the board exams relies on these. For
psychometricians, the 4 test subjects are Theories of Personality, Abnormal Psychology, Industrial psychology, and
Psychological Assessment. For psychologists, there will be no industrial psychology subject. Instead, it will be
replaced by psychological counseling and psychotherapy plus advanced subjects of Theories of Personality, Abnormal
Psychology, and Psychological Assessment.
Heres the catch these subjects should appear in your transcript of records aside from graduating the psychology
degree before you can qualify for the board exam. The Commission on Higher Education released a memorandum in
2009 (CMO No. 38) that details the undergraduate curriculum in psychology. If your school already adopted this
while you are studying, chances are you will not encounter concerns in your TOR. However, some schools have not
fully implemented the CMO 38 and so these schools may have different subject coverage in their psychology
programs. Nevertheless, in the last IRR Briefing done in DLSU-CSB, Dr. Villar stated that they may allow subjects
that have different names but have the same content with the 4 test subjects. For example, Psychology of Mental
Disorders and Psychopathology may be treated as equivalent to Abnormal Psychology in the same way as Clinical
Assessment and testing is equivalent to Psychological Assessment.
Another development you should watch out is the possible change of test subjects next year. Dr. Villar stated in the
DLSU-CSB IRR briefing that they may file a request in the PRC to remove industrial psychology and replace it with
developmental psychology as one of the test subjects in the psychometrician board exam. This is due to the
differences in the undergraduate curriculum of different schools/colleges/universities. Specifically, there are schools
who only offer industrial psychology as an elective and some of these students may have not taken it even after
graduation. For the psychologist board exam, there has no announcement yet if developmental psychology will be
added as its 5th subject. We should wait for further announcements and board resolutions regarding this changes.
Lastly, the scope of examination for each of these test subjects will NOT be released by the PRB, at least as of now
they planned not to release it. It means that we are left alone to decipher/guess what topics will appear in the board
exam questions. However, a consultation with professors and lecturers of different schools was done in Assumption
College last February 26, 2013. They discussed the possible topic coverage of the test subjects as well as the national
competencies and expectations for the new psychometricians and psychologists. The result of these consultations will
hopefully be publicized in the form of board resolution so that everyone will be informed accordingly.

7. The Professional Regulatory Board of Psychology

The Professional Regulatory Board of Psychology, a.k.a PRB is the governing body that will oversee and regulate
the practice of psychology in the Philippines. They are under the administrative control and supervision of the
Professional Regulation Commission which is a government institution. Currently the acting chairman of PRB is
Miriam Cue and has 1 member which is Imelda Villar.
Notable to all of the PRCs regulatory board is their quasi-judicial nature. The PRB therefore has the authority to
issue subpoena testificandum and subpoena ducestecum. This ability allows the PRB to hear cases pertaining to the
psychology act. They can also revoke licenses, visit institutions to check compliance with the law, coordinate with
CHED, and assist in creating guidelines for continuing professional education.

8. Prohibitions
Just like most of the laws, the RA 10029 and its IRR have a list of prohibited acts and penalties to those who break the
law. As a rule of thumb, if any one performs one of the psychological services mentioned in the IRR BUT without a
license, that person should be prepared to be imprisoned for 6 months to 3 years and/or pay a fine of Php 10,000-

100,000. Also, people are not allowed to call themselves psychologist/psychometricians if they are not yet licensed.
For corporations and institutions involved in psychological services, they need to secure a permit from PRB before
they can legally operate. Lastly, do not fool the PRB because if they discover the truth, you will be punished. And no
borrowing of License Card!

9. Code of Ethics
The Law mandates that psychologists and psychometricians need to adopt their own code of ethics. Currently, PAP
already has its Code of Ethics for Psychologists which is available in their website. Since PAP will be the accredited
professional organization (APO), we expect that the code of ethics from PAP will be used and adopted by the PRB.

10. APO
Every profession under the regulation of PRC has their own Accredited Professional Organization (APO). If PRB
serves as the legal and government organization overseeing the professional field, the APO acts to represent the
professionals and its associates. They may serve in CPE accreditation, certifications, academic and research functions,
among others. The Psychological Association of the Philippines will be the APO for psychology.