MANILA, Philippines—Filipino professionals anywhere around the world can now renew their Professional Identification Cards (PICs) without having to fly home and fall in line at the Philippine Regulation Commission (PRC) offices in the Philippines.
This was after last week’s official launching of PRC’s Online Renewal Application System (ORAS), one of two novel PRC services which are now technology-based. The other e-Service, the Online Verification for Filipino Professionals (OVFP), enables the public and employers to check the authenticity of the license of the professionals they are dealing with.
PRC chairman Nicolas Lapeña emphasized that the clients intended to be benefited by ORAS are “primarily the overseas professionals who usually resort to filing their applications through authorized parties.”
The system is designed to save our professionals time, money, and effort, adding that the transactions covered include the renewal, reprinting and duplication of the PIC, the PRC chief said.
Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz hailed the PRC for the two new services, saying these will afford overseas professionals substantial savings, and at the same time, reinforce government’s campaign to ensure the authenticity of Filipino professionals’ credentials at all times.
“This reflects, on the part of the PRC, the innovative and resourceful application of information technology in pursuit of safeguards on professional authenticity that can only redound to the strengthening and continuing preference for highly skilled Filipino professionals engaged in various fields and disciplines in industries worldwide,” said Baldoz, adding:
The labor and employment chief cited that Republic Act 8981 or the “PRC Modernization Act of 2000,” mandated the Commission to ministerially issue at the option of a professional his or her PIC, whose use is solely for the purpose of identification.
As an attached agency of the Department of Labor and Employment, the PRC’s mandate is “to regulate and supervise the practice of the professionals who constitute the highly skilled manpower of the country.”
