Academic Credentials for Mental Health Professionals in the Philippines

Philippine mental health titles are gated at the qualification. Two separate Acts of Congress, and two separate boards of the Professional Regulation Commission, decide who may call themselves a psychologist and who may call themselves a guidance counsellor. This guide sets out what each title requires you to study, and where the requirement is written down.

Quick answer: which qualification leads to which licence

Every row below is a separate statutory route with its own Act, its own board and its own examination. The academic content overlaps in places. The licences do not.

Two Acts, two boards: why psychology and counselling do not share a licence

Psychology and guidance counselling are separate registers under separate Acts, and the distinction matters to anyone reading a practitioner's profile. The Philippine Psychology Act of 2009 created a Professional Regulatory Board of Psychology under the Professional Regulation Commission, and made it the body that registers psychologists and psychometricians.¹ Five years earlier, the Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004 had already created a separate Professional Regulatory Board of Guidance and Counseling, with its own register and its own examination.⁸ Both boards appear on the PRC's own roster of professional regulatory boards.¹²

Each Act carries its own prohibition. Under the Psychology Act, no person may engage in the professional practice of psychology or psychometrics, or represent themselves as a practising psychologist or psychometrician, without a valid certificate of registration and professional identification card or a valid special or temporary permit.⁷ Under the Guidance and Counseling Act, no person may engage in the practice of guidance and counselling without a valid certificate of registration and professional identification card or a special permit.¹¹

So a person doing school guidance work in the Philippines is not licensed as a psychologist by default. That work sits under the 2004 Act.

Where the confusion comes from. The academic content genuinely does overlap. Ateneo de Manila makes the divergence visible in one department pair. Its Master in Counseling Psychology, a professional degree in the psychology department, states that students are eligible to take the licensure examination for psychologists on conferment of the degree.²⁹ Its Master of Arts in Guidance and Counseling, run by the education school, is built around school guidance programmes, counselling techniques, psychological measurement and a supervised field work course.³⁰ Similar syllabus, different register.

Ask which examination a programme prepares you for. That question separates the two routes faster than the degree title does.

Registered Psychologist: the master's route

The Psychology Act defines a psychologist as a person duly registered, holding a valid certificate of registration and a valid professional identification card issued by the Board of Psychology and the PRC.¹

The academic requirement

To sit the licensure examination for psychologists, an applicant must hold at least a master's degree in psychology conferred by a university, college or school in the Philippines or abroad recognised or accredited by the Commission on Higher Education, and must have obtained sufficient credits for the subjects covered in the examination.²

The Act adds a supervised practice requirement that is frequently left out of published summaries. The applicant must have undergone a minimum of 200 hours of supervised practicum, internship or clinical experience related to the delivery of psychological services, under the auspices of a licensed psychologist or other licensed mental health professional.²

Note what the statute does not say. It does not require a doctorate, and it does not name clinical psychology specifically. A master's in psychology, with the right credits and the 200 hours, is the statutory bar. Universities set the shape of the degree above it, which is why programmes differ in length and in how much supervised practice they build in.

Where these programmes are taught

Master's and doctoral programmes in clinical psychology are offered at a number of Philippine universities. De La Salle University offers a Master of Arts in Psychology major in Clinical Psychology, which trains students in clinical assessment, psychotherapy and the prevention of psychopathology.³¹ The University of Santo Tomas Graduate School offers both a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Philosophy major in Clinical Psychology.³² Ateneo de Manila's psychology department separates research degrees from professional ones, and it is the professional Master in Counseling Psychology that it identifies as leading to the psychologists' licensure examination.²⁹

The examination

The licensure examination for psychologists covers four statutory subjects: Advanced Theories of Personality, Advanced Abnormal Psychology, Advanced Psychological Assessment, and Psychological Counseling and Psychotherapy.⁴ The Board may recluster, rearrange, modify, add or exclude subjects as the need arises.⁴

To pass, a candidate must obtain a weighted general average of at least 75% across all subjects, with no grade lower than 60% in any single subject. A candidate who averages 75% or above but falls below 60% in one subject may retake that subject within the next two years.⁵

Successful examinees take an oath before entering practice, and are then issued a certificate of registration and a professional identification card. The card carries the registration number and is valid for three years, renewable on proof of compliance with continuing education requirements.⁵

Registered Psychometrician: the bachelor's route, and its limits

This is the licence a directory user is most likely to encounter and least likely to have had explained, so it is worth setting out carefully.

To sit the psychometrician examination, an applicant must hold at least a bachelor's degree in psychology conferred by a CHED-recognised institution, with sufficient credits for the examination subjects.³ No master's degree and no statutory practicum hours are required. Far Eastern University, for instance, states that its BS Psychology follows CHED Memorandum Order No. 34, series of 2017, requires a minimum of 400 hours of practicum across industrial and clinical settings, and qualifies graduates to sit the Psychometrician Licensure Examination.²⁷

The examination covers Theories of Personality, Abnormal Psychology, Industrial Psychology and Psychological Assessment.⁴ The pass standard is the same 75% weighted average with no subject below 60%.⁵

What the licence authorises

The Act defines the scope narrowly, and conditions all of it on supervision. A psychometrician is authorised to do the following, provided that it is at all times conducted under the supervision of a licensed professional psychologist: administering and scoring objective personality tests and structured personality tests, excluding projective tests and other higher-level forms of psychological tests; interpreting the results of those tests and preparing a written report on them; and conducting preparatory intake interviews of clients for psychological intervention sessions.¹

Read the exclusions as carefully as the inclusions. Projective testing sits outside the scope, and so does independent psychotherapy: psychological counselling and psychotherapy fall within the Act's definition of the practice of psychology, and the psychometrician's authorised list does not include them.¹

That is not a slight on the role. Psychometricians do skilled, necessary work, and the licence is a real professional qualification with a real examination behind it. It is simply a different licence from the psychologist's one, and a reader comparing two profiles should know which they are looking at.

Both licences belong to the same professional organisation. The Act integrates the profession into one national body accredited by the Board,⁶ and that body is the Psychological Association of the Philippines, founded in 1962 and the PRC's Accredited Integrated Professional Organization for registered psychologists and psychometricians. Clinical psychology sits within it as one of seven divisions, alongside assessment, counselling, developmental, educational, industrial-organisational and social psychology.¹³

Registered Guidance Counselor

The Guidance and Counseling Act defines a guidance counsellor as a person registered and issued a valid certificate of registration and professional identification card by the Board of Guidance and Counseling and the PRC, who by virtue of specialised training performs guidance and counselling functions for a fee, salary or other compensation.⁸

The academic requirement

The qualification is stated as a conjunction, and both halves are needed. An applicant must be a holder of a bachelor's degree in guidance and counselling or in other allied disciplines and a master's degree in guidance and counselling, from an institution in the Philippines or abroad recognised or accredited by CHED.⁹

Ateneo de Manila's Master of Arts in Guidance and Counseling is a worked example of what such a programme contains: foundations and nature of guidance, research methods and statistics, organisation and management of guidance programmes, counselling techniques, personality and counselling theories, psychological measurement and evaluation, and a supervised field work and practice course, followed by comprehensive examinations and a thesis.³⁰

The examination

The Guidance Counselor Licensure Examination covers five subject areas: Philosophical, Psychological and Sociological Foundations of Guidance; Counseling Theories, Tools and Techniques; Psychological Testing; Organization and Administration of Guidance Services; and Group Process and Program Development.¹⁰ The pass standard is a weighted general average of 75%, with no grade lower than 60% in any subject.¹⁰

The professional organisation

The Philippine Guidance and Counseling Association, Inc. is the profession's long-standing national association, and the PRC's own CPD accreditation system records it as an accredited CPD provider for guidance and counselling under accreditation number OGC-2009-001.¹⁴ Whether it currently holds the separate designation of accredited integrated professional organisation is a question to check rather than assume: in March 2026 the PRC invited professional organisations in guidance and counselling, among other fields, to apply for APO or AIPO accreditation, with a closing date of 30 June 2026.¹⁴

Psychiatry

Psychiatrists qualify as doctors first, and the specialty layer sits on top of the medical licence rather than replacing it.

The medical degree and licence

Under the Medical Act of 1959, no person may engage in the practice of medicine unless they have passed the board examination and hold a valid certificate of registration. To sit that examination, a candidate must hold the degree of Doctor of Medicine or its equivalent, conferred by a recognised college of medicine, and the examination covers twelve subject groups spanning the basic and clinical sciences.¹⁵

Philippine medical programmes build in a post-graduate internship year. The University of the Philippines Manila describes its Doctor of Medicine as a five-year programme comprising four years of medicine plus one internship year, on an organ-system integrated curriculum with a biopsychosocial approach to understanding disease.¹⁶

Residency and the specialty board

Residency training in psychiatry is undertaken at an institution accredited by the Philippine Psychiatric Association, which publishes its list of accredited training institutions. As the list stood in September 2026, there were twenty across the country, eight of them in the National Capital Region, including the National Center for Mental Health and UP-Philippine General Hospital.¹⁷

The credential that follows is Diplomate of the Specialty Board of Philippine Psychiatry, conferred after a written examination administered by that board.¹⁸

One distinction worth holding onto. The Specialty Board of Philippine Psychiatry is the certifying board of the Philippine Psychiatric Association, and it is the association that publishes and administers the Diplomate examination.¹⁸ It is not a statutory licensing authority: psychiatry does not appear on the PRC's roster of professional regulatory boards.¹² Statutory licensure for a psychiatrist is the physician's licence, held with the PRC Board of Medicine. Diplomate status is the profession's own mark of specialty competence on top of it.

Social work

Social work has been a regulated Philippine profession since 1965, under an Act substantially amended in 2016. To be admitted to the social work examination, an applicant must hold a bachelor's or master's degree or its equivalent in social work from a duly accredited institution, and must have completed a minimum of 1,000 case hours of practical training in an established social work agency under the direct supervision of a fully trained and qualified social worker.²⁰

The amendment is precise about how those hours sit in the degree. In an undergraduate programme, the academic courses must precede the required field practice of 1,000 case hours, and the field practice must comply with the social work curriculum approved by CHED and the Board.²⁰

To pass, a candidate must obtain a general rating of at least 70% in the written test, with no rating below 50% in any subject.¹⁹ Successful examinees take a professional oath before entering practice and are issued a certificate of registration.¹⁹ Practising or offering to practise social work without being registered is a penal offence.²⁰

Occupational therapy

Occupational therapy was regulated for fifty years under a 1969 Act it shared with physical therapy. That changed in 2019. Republic Act No. 11241, approved in March 2019 and short-titled the Philippine Occupational Therapy Law of 2018, now regulates the registration, licensure and practice of occupational therapy on its own, creates a separate Board of Occupational Therapy under the PRC, and modifies the 1969 Act accordingly.²² Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy now sit as two distinct boards on the PRC roster.¹²

The Act puts mental health inside its own description of the profession. Occupational therapy is defined as a client-centred health profession concerned with promoting health and well-being through occupation, and the scope provision states the purpose as preventing limitations in participation and promoting, maintaining or restoring occupational performance, health and psychosocial well-being, in settings that include hospitals, schools, community residential, vocational and leisure centres, day programmes, clinics and the workplace.²²

To sit the examination, an applicant must be a graduate of a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy, or an equivalent degree as determined by the Board, from a school, college or university in the Philippines or abroad whose occupational therapy programme is recognised by CHED.²² Note what the 2019 Act does not carry. It sets no separate clinical-experience requirement for admission to the examination, where the 1969 Act had required nine months. Supervised practice now sits inside the CHED-recognised degree rather than beside it, so the programme is the thing to ask about.

The examination is built on three application domains, and one of them is explicitly psychosocial: adult physical dysfunction, paediatrics, geriatrics, psychosocial dysfunction and community-based practice sit together in the second.²² The pass standard is a general average of 75%, with no grade lower than 60% in any subject, and registered practitioners use the initials OTRP, for Occupational Therapists Registered Philippines.²²

The University of the Philippines Manila runs the country's oldest programme, in existence since 1962, an eight-semester four-year outcomes-oriented degree of 157 units, recognised by the World Federation of Occupational Therapists.²⁸

One feature of the older framework is worth flagging, because summaries written before 2019 still repeat it. RA 5680 conditioned occupational therapy practice on a physician's prescription. RA 11241 carries no such requirement: it conditions practice on registration and a professional licence, and mentions referral only in describing what therapists do once a client reaches them.²² Anyone relying on the older rule should check the Board's current issuances rather than the 1969 text.

Nursing, and psychiatric-mental health nursing

Nursing has one statutory licence, and psychiatric-mental health nursing is a field of practice within it rather than a separate registration.

To be admitted to the nurse licensure examination, an applicant must hold a Bachelor's Degree in Nursing from a college or university that complies with the standards of nursing education recognised by the proper government agency.²¹ The pass standard is a general average of at least 75%, with no rating below 60% in any subject.²¹

The Act's statement of scope is broad, covering nursing care across the lifespan in any health care setting, with nurses described as independent practitioners in health promotion and illness prevention and as members of a health team on curative, preventive and rehabilitative care.²¹

There is no separate PRC board and no separate PRC licence for psychiatric or mental health nursing; nursing appears once on the PRC roster of boards.¹² Nurses who specialise do so through postgraduate study and clinical experience. Because those routes are set by individual graduate schools rather than by statute, check the specific programme and what it leads to with the college concerned.

Titles with no Philippine licence

Some titles a reader will meet on an international directory have no Philippine statutory route at all, and it is more useful to say so plainly than to imply an equivalence. The PRC's roster of professional regulatory boards contains no board for marriage and family therapy, and none for art therapy, music therapy, drama therapy or dance movement therapy.¹² There is therefore no Philippine licensure examination in those disciplines and no protected Philippine title attached to them.

In practice, a person offering family therapy or an arts therapy in the Philippines is practising under whatever licence they do hold, most often as a psychologist, a guidance counsellor or a social worker, with the modality as additional training rather than as the basis of registration. We could not verify a Philippine degree programme in any of the arts therapies from an institutional source, so anyone told that one exists should ask the university directly for its accreditation and the register it leads to.

The absence of a Philippine board says nothing about the value of the modality. It says only that the title carries no statutory standing here, and that the licence underneath it is the thing to ask about.

What the Mental Health Act requires of training

The Mental Health Act of 2018 creates no licence. Its definition of a mental health professional is deliberately open: a medical doctor, psychologist, nurse, social worker or any other appropriately trained and qualified person with specific skills relevant to the provision of mental health services.²³ Registration remains a matter for the professional regulatory laws above. What the Act does is place obligations on the education system, and two bear directly on qualifications.

• Psychiatry and neurology are required subjects in all medical and allied health courses, including post-graduate courses in health.²³
• All public and private educational institutions are required to have a complement of mental health professionals, and CHED, DepEd and TESDA are charged with ensuring that mental health promotion in institutions is adequately complemented by qualified mental health professionals.²³

The second of those is a substantial driver of demand for licensed guidance counsellors in Philippine schools and universities, which is worth knowing if you are weighing the RGC route.

Sikolohiyang Pilipino, and what it actually is

Philippine psychology has an indigenous tradition with no close equivalent in most of the countries this directory covers, and it is often described loosely. Here is what the scholarly record supports. Sikolohiyang Pilipino refers to psychology born out of the experience, thought and orientation of Filipinos, based on the full use of Filipino culture and language, using an approach of indigenisation from within, in which the theoretical framework and methodology emerge from the experiences of people in the indigenous culture.²⁶

It was introduced in the early 1970s by Virgilio Gaspar Enriquez, who returned to the Philippines from Northwestern University with a doctorate in social psychology and, with Alfredo V. Lagmay, then chair of psychology at the University of the Philippines, began research into the historical and cultural roots of Philippine psychology. In 1975 Enriquez chaired the first national conference on Filipino psychology at UP, where the ideas and formulations of Sikolohiyang Pilipino were formally articulated; from that conference the Pambansang Samahan sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino was founded.²⁶

Its central conceptual contribution is kapwa, shared identity, which Enriquez placed at the core of Filipino social psychology and at the heart of the structure of Filipino values. He argued that what Filipinos are most concerned with is not smooth interpersonal relations but pakikipagkapwa, treating the other person as a fellow human being.²⁶

Its documented outcomes include a body of indigenous concepts, indigenous research methods, indigenous personality testing, and new directions in teaching psychology, with Filipino used extensively in graduate teaching and research.²⁶ The Mental Health Act points the same way, requiring that research produce the evidence for a culturally relevant national mental health programme incorporating indigenous concepts and practices.²³

What we cannot tell you, because no source we found establishes it, is how much of any particular degree programme is taught in this tradition. That varies by department and by supervisor. If it matters to your training, ask the department who supervises in it.

Keeping a licence current, and qualifications from abroad

Continuing professional development

The professional identification card is valid for three years, and renewal requires proof of compliance with continuing education.⁵ The framework is the Continuing Professional Development Act of 2016, which makes CPD mandatory for the renewal of the card of every professional regulated by the PRC.²⁴

Required unit counts are set per profession, not uniformly, and the figures in circulation come from a transition arrangement rather than a settled schedule. In the PRC table of required CPD credit units for renewal, published in November 2020 under Commission Resolution No. 2019-1146, psychology, guidance and counselling, medicine, nursing and occupational therapy each carried 15 units, and social workers 45.²⁵ Social work sits outside that arrangement because its own statute fixes the figure: registered social workers must provide proof of 45 CPD units from an accredited provider as a requirement for renewal.²⁰

Two cautions. The PRC table is expressly framed as applying during a transition period, and individual boards issue their own operational guidelines that can differentiate between categories.²⁵ That transition is still running: in June 2026 the PRC extended acceptance of the CPD undertaking for card renewal to 31 December 2026, under Commission Resolution No. 2200, series of 2026.²⁵ Check the current requirement for your own board at prc.gov.ph before you plan a renewal cycle around a figure.

Qualifications earned outside the Philippines

Both statutes accept CHED-recognised degrees obtained abroad as the academic qualification.²⁹ Admission to the examination is a separate question for non-citizens, and turns on reciprocity: no foreigner is admitted to the psychology or psychometrics examinations unless their own country admits Filipinos to practise on stated terms of equality,² and the Guidance and Counseling Act carries the same condition.¹¹

There is a limited alternative for specialists. The Board of Psychology may issue special or temporary permits to licensed psychologists or psychometricians from other countries who are internationally acknowledged specialists, who offer their services free and exclusively to indigent patients, or who are employed as exchange professors. Such a permit runs for not more than a year, is renewable, and names the place of practice.⁶

Movement in the other direction is not automatic either. A PRC licence confers no standing abroad, and each destination regulator assesses Philippine qualifications on its own terms.

Regulation, protected titles and verification

This page covers what you have to study. Which titles the law protects, what the offences are for practising unregistered, and how to check a practitioner on the PRC's public register are answered in our companion guide, mental health licensing and regulation in the Philippines, which sets out the two boards, the Acts behind them, and the free PRC licence lookup.

The penalty position, for anyone who wants it without leaving this page: practising psychology or psychometrics without a valid certificate and card carries imprisonment of six months to three years, a fine of ten thousand to one hundred thousand pesos, or both.⁷ Practising guidance and counselling without registration carries imprisonment of six months to eight years, a fine of fifty thousand to one hundred thousand pesos, or both.¹¹

One thing to expect on a senior practitioner's profile. Both Acts opened with a transitory route. A person who already held the stated degree and years of practice could be registered without sitting the examination, provided they applied within three years of the Board of Psychology's creation, or within two years of the Board of Guidance and Counseling's.³³ Those windows are long closed and registration is now by examination in both professions. But a practitioner registered in the early years of either register may hold a genuine PRC registration without having sat the examinations set out above, so the register itself, rather than an assumption about the route, is the check.

Choosing a route, and finding a therapist

If you are choosing a Philippine training route, three questions narrow it faster than any prospectus.

• Which examination does this degree qualify me to sit? Not which subjects it teaches. A counselling-flavoured master's can lead to either register, or to neither, depending on how it is constituted.²⁹
• Does it carry the supervised hours the statute wants? 200 hours for the psychologist route, and 1,000 case hours for social work. Occupational therapy is the exception: since 2019 its Act sets no separate hours figure, so the supervised practice built into the CHED-recognised degree is what to ask about.²²⁰²²
• Is the institution CHED-recognised? The statutes tie the qualification to CHED recognition, so a degree from an unrecognised provider does not open the examination however good the teaching is.²³⁹

If you are looking for a therapist rather than a training route, the licences above are the ones to ask about, and the distinction between a psychologist, a psychometrician and a guidance counsellor is the one that will tell you most about what a practitioner may do. TherapyRoute is a clinician-run directory, founded by a registered clinical psychologist. Start with our guide on how to find the right therapist, or browse therapists in the Philippines.

Last reviewed: September 2026. Jurisdiction: Philippines. The statutes cited were checked as in force at that date; the occupational therapy provisions of RA 5680 (1969) were superseded by RA 11241 in 2019 and this page follows the current Act. Programme details are set by individual universities and change between intakes; confirm with the institution and the relevant PRC board before applying.

Team TherapyRoute

References

1. [1] Republic Act No. 10029, the Philippine Psychology Act of 2009, ss3(b), 3(c), 3(d), 4: the practice of psychology covers psychological interventions (including psychological counseling and psychotherapy), assessment and programmes; a psychologist holds a valid certificate of registration and professional identification card from the Board of Psychology and the PRC; a psychometrician is authorised, "Provided, That such shall at all times be conducted under the supervision of a licensed professional psychologist", to administer and score objective and structured personality tests "excluding projective tests and other higher level forms of psychological tests", report on those results, and conduct preparatory intake interviews; s4 creates the Board under the PRC. lawphil.net.
2. [2] RA 10029, ss11-12, 24: registration requires passing a licensure examination; a psychologist applicant must hold at least a master’s degree in psychology from a CHED-recognised institution in the Philippines or abroad, with sufficient credits for the examination subjects, and must have undergone "a minimum of two hundred (200) hours of supervised practicum/internship/clinical experience" under a licensed psychologist or other licensed mental health professional; s24 sets the foreign reciprocity condition for admission to the examinations. lawphil.net.
3. [3] RA 10029, s13: a psychometrician applicant must hold at least a bachelor’s degree in psychology from a CHED-recognised institution, with sufficient credits for the examination subjects. lawphil.net.
4. [4] RA 10029, ss14-15: the psychologists’ examination covers Advanced Theories of Personality, Advanced Abnormal Psychology, Advanced Psychological Assessment, and Psychological Counseling and Psychotherapy; the psychometricians’ covers Theories of Personality, Abnormal Psychology, Industrial Psychology and Psychological Assessment; the Board may recluster, modify, add or exclude subjects. lawphil.net.
5. [5] RA 10029, ss18, 20-21: a weighted general average of at least 75% with no grade below 60%, and a two-year window to retake a subject rated below 60%; an oath before practice; a certificate of registration and a professional identification card with a validity term of three years, renewable "upon proof of compliance with continuing education requirements". lawphil.net.
6. [6] RA 10029, ss25, 31: special or temporary permits for foreign licensed psychologists or psychometricians who are internationally acknowledged specialists, who serve indigent patients without fee, or who are exchange professors, for not more than one year, renewable, naming the place of practice; s31 integrates the profession into one national organisation accredited by the Board, with automatic membership on registration. lawphil.net.
7. [7] RA 10029, ss33-34: no person shall practise psychology or psychometrics, or represent himself or herself as a practising psychologist or psychometrician, without a valid certificate of registration, professional identification card or special/temporary permit; penalty of six months to three years imprisonment, a fine of P10,000 to P100,000, or both. lawphil.net.
8. [8] Republic Act No. 9258, the Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004, ss3(a), 3(b), 4: defines guidance and counselling, and defines a guidance counselor as a person registered and issued a valid Certificate of Registration and Professional Identification Card by the Professional Regulatory Board of Guidance and Counseling and the PRC; s4 creates that Board under the Commission. lawphil.net.
9. [9] RA 9258, s13(c): to qualify for the examination an applicant must be a "holder of a Bachelor’s Degree in Guidance and Counseling or in other Allied Disciplines and a master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling from an institution in the Philippines or abroad recognized or accredited by the CHED". lawphil.net.
10. [10] RA 9258, ss15, 17-19: the examination covers Philosophical, Psychological and Sociological Foundations of Guidance; Counseling Theories, Tools and Techniques; Psychological Testing; Organization and Administration of Guidance Services; and Group Process and Program Development. Pass standard: a weighted general average of 75% with no grade below 60%, then oath, Certificate of Registration and Professional Identification Card. lawphil.net.
11. [11] RA 9258, ss27, 29, 33: no person shall practise guidance and counseling without a valid Certificate of Registration and Professional Identification Card or special permit, and no entity shall operate a guidance and counseling office without a Board permit; s29 sets foreign reciprocity; s33 penalises violation with six months to eight years imprisonment, a fine of P50,000 to P100,000, or both. lawphil.net.
12. [12] Professional Regulation Commission, Professional Regulatory Boards. The roster of 46 boards includes Psychology, Guidance and Counseling, Social Workers, Nursing, Medicine and Occupational Therapy, and contains no board for psychiatry, marriage and family therapy, art therapy or music therapy. Re-checked 2026-09-01: the roster still lists 46 boards, with Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy now separate. prc.gov.ph.
13. [13] Psychological Association of the Philippines, About Us: founded in 1962 and "the Accredited Integrated Professional Organization (AIPO) for registered psychometricians and psychologists of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC)", with seven divisions: Assessment, Clinical, Counseling, Developmental, Educational, Industrial-Organizational and Social Psychology. Re-checked 2026-09-01. pap.ph.
14. [14] PRC Continuing Professional Development Accreditation System, provider record: "Philippine Guidance And Counseling Association, Inc.", accreditation number OGC-2009-001, profession Guidance and Counseling, accredited until 6 September 2027. Read 2026-08-28. cpdas.prc.gov.ph. PRC, "CALL FOR APPLICATION: APO or AIPO Accreditation for Various Professions", posted 4 March 2026, invites professional organisations in Guidance and Counseling (and in Occupational Therapy, Nursing and ten other fields) to apply for APO/AIPO accreditation under PRC Resolution No. 1910 (s. 2024), deadline 30 June 2026. Read 2026-09-01. prc.gov.ph.
15. [15] Republic Act No. 2382, the Medical Act of 1959, ss8-10, 21: no person shall practise medicine without having passed the Board Examination and holding a valid Certificate of Registration; a candidate must be "a holder of the degree of Doctor of Medicine or its equivalent, conferred by a college of medicine duly recognized"; s21 lists the twelve examination subject groups. lawphil.net.
16. [16] University of the Philippines Manila, Doctor of Medicine: "A five (5) year program (including 4 years of medicine and 1 year of internship)", on an organ system integrated curriculum with a biopsychosocial approach to understanding disease. Read 2026-08-28. upm.edu.ph.
17. [17] Philippine Psychiatric Association, Accredited Training Institutions: twenty institutions are listed, eight in the National Capital Region (including the National Center for Mental Health and UP-Philippine General Hospital), the remainder across Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. Re-counted 2026-09-01: still twenty, eight in NCR. philippinepsychiatricassociation.org.
18. [18] Philippine Psychiatric Association, Diplomate Written Examination: the credential conferred is "Diplomate of the Specialty Board of Philippine Psychiatry", following a written examination administered by that board. Fellow is a separate membership category. Read 2026-08-28. philippinepsychiatricassociation.org.
19. [19] Republic Act No. 4373 (1965), regulating the practice of social work, ss13-14, 16-17: the Board prescribes the scope of the written examination; a candidate must obtain a general rating of at least 70% with no rating below 50% in any subject; successful examinees take a professional oath before practice and are issued certificates of registration. lawphil.net.
20. [20] Republic Act No. 10847 (2016), amending RA 4373: amended s12 requires a bachelor’s or master’s degree or its equivalent in social work from an accredited institution and completion of "a minimum period of one thousand (1,000) case hours of practical training in an established social work agency under the direct supervision of a fully trained and qualified social worker", with academic courses preceding field practice in undergraduate programmes; new s26 requires 45 CPD units for renewal of the professional identification card; new s29 penalises practising social work without registration. lawphil.net.
21. [21] Republic Act No. 9173, the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, ss12-13, 15, 28: applicants must pass a written examination given by the Board and be "a holder of a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing from a college or university that complies with the standards of nursing education duly recognized by the proper government agency"; pass standard 75% general average with no rating below 60%; s28 sets out the scope of nursing. lawphil.net.
22. [22] Republic Act No. 11241, "The Philippine Occupational Therapy Law of 2018", approved 11 March 2019: s3(a) and (c) define occupational therapy as "a client-centered health profession concerned with promoting health and well-being through occupation" and give the purpose as promoting, maintaining or restoring "occupational performance, health, and psychosocial well-being" across hospital, community, school, clinic and workplace settings; s4 creates the Board of Occupational Therapy under the PRC; s13(c) requires "A graduate of a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy degree or its equivalent degree as determined by the Board from a school, college or university in the Philippines or abroad whose occupational therapy program is recognized by the CHED", and sets no clinical-hours requirement; s14 lists the examination domains, including Psychosocial Dysfunction and Community-based Practice; s15 sets "a general average of seventy-five percent (75%), with no grade lower than sixty percent (60%)"; s18 prescribes the initials OTRP; ss26-27 condition practice on registration and a professional licence, and no provision of the Act requires a physician’s prescription; s37 provides that "Republic Act No. 5680 is hereby modified accordingly". Read 2026-09-01. lawphil.net. The superseded position was Republic Act No. 5680 (1969), s12, prohibiting practice "without the prescription of a duly registered physician", and s15(f), requiring nine months of supervised clinical experience: lawphil.net.
23. [23] Republic Act No. 11036, the Mental Health Act (2018), ss4(m), 23, 24, 28, 34: "Mental Health Professional refers to a medical doctor, psychologist, nurse social worker or any other appropriately-trained and qualified person with specific skills relevant to the provision of mental health services"; s23(b) "Psychiatry and neurology shall be required subjects in all medical and allied health courses, including post-graduate courses in health"; s24 requires all educational institutions to have a complement of mental health professionals; s28 requires research towards "a culturally relevant national mental health program incorporating indigenous concepts and practices"; s34 sets the DepEd, CHED and TESDA duties. lawphil.net.
24. [24] Republic Act No. 10912, the Continuing Professional Development Act of 2016, making CPD a requirement for renewal of the professional identification card of all PRC-regulated professionals. PRC-published text. prc.gov.ph.
25. [25] PRC, Continuing Professional Development FAQs (as of November 2020), items 6-9 and Table 1, "Required CPD Credit Units (for the renewal of Professional Identification Card)" during the transition period under Commission Resolution No. 2019-1146: Psychology 15, Guidance and Counseling 15, Medicine 15, Nursing 15, Occupational Therapy 15, Social Workers 45. Professions whose own regulatory laws fix a unit figure fall outside the transition arrangement, and every board issues its own operational guidelines. prc.gov.ph. PRC, "Extending the Acceptance of CPD Undertaking for the Renewal of Professional Identification Card until 31 December 2026", posted 23 June 2026, citing Commission Resolution No. 2200 s. 2026. Read 2026-09-01. prc.gov.ph.
26. [26] Pe-Pua, R. & Protacio-Marcelino, E. (2000). Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology): A legacy of Virgilio G. Enriquez. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 3, 49-71. Source for the definition and for "indigenization from within"; Enriquez’s return from Northwestern University in the early 1970s and his work with Alfredo V. Lagmay at the University of the Philippines; the 1975 first national conference at UP and the founding of the Pambansang Samahan sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino; kapwa and pakikipagkapwa; and the listed outcomes, including new directions in teaching psychology. Author-hosted copy. indigenouspsych.org.
27. [27] Far Eastern University, BS Psychology: the programme "adheres with the prescribed policies and standards for psychology programs as indicated in the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) memorandum order (CMO) no. 34, series of 2017", requires a minimum of 400 hours across Practicum 1 and 2 in industrial and clinical settings, and qualifies graduates "to take the Psychometrician Licensure Examination under the PRC". Read 2026-08-28. feu.edu.ph.
28. [28] University of the Philippines Manila, BS Occupational Therapy: "This 8-semester (4 years), outcomes-oriented program has a total of 157 units"; in existence since 1962; "recognized by the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT)". Read 2026-08-28. upm.edu.ph.
29. [29] Ateneo de Manila University, Department of Psychology, Masters (Professional) Degree Programs: of the Master in Counseling Psychology, "Students are eligible to take the Board Licensure Examination for Psychologists upon conferment of the Master in Counseling Psychology degree." Read 2026-08-28. ateneo.edu.
30. [30] Ateneo de Manila University (GBSEALD), MA in Guidance and Counseling: published curriculum covering Foundations and Nature of Guidance, research methods and statistics, Organization and Management of Guidance Personnel Programs, Counseling Techniques, Personality and Counseling Theories, Psychological Measurements and Evaluation, and Supervised Field Work and Practice in Guidance, with comprehensive examinations and a thesis. Read 2026-08-28. ateneo.edu.
31. [31] De La Salle University, MA in Psychology major in Clinical Psychology: the programme "trains students in clinical assessment, psychotherapy, and the prevention of psychopathology". Read 2026-08-28. dlsu.edu.ph.
32. [32] University of Santo Tomas Graduate School, programme pages for the Master of Arts, major in Clinical Psychology, and the Doctor of Philosophy, major in Clinical Psychology. Read 2026-08-28. ust.edu.ph.
33. [33] RA 10029, ss16-17, and RA 9258, s14, on registration without examination. RA 10029 s16 admits an applicant who, on or prior to the effectivity of the Act, held a doctorate in psychology with three years’ work experience, a master’s with five years’, or a bachelor’s with ten years’ experience as a psychologist in a government or private agency, "Provided, That the applicant files with the Board within three (3) years after its creation"; s17 sets a parallel route for psychometricians on a bachelor’s degree and two years’ full-time practice, on the same three-year filing window. lawphil.net. RA 9258 s14 sets a comparable degree-and-experience route for guidance counsellors, for applications filed within two years of that Board’s creation. lawphil.net.