On October 19,1984, the PIEP Council under the incumbency of Josefina Ramos again made a resolution recommending to President Marcos 10 names for consideration in the Board of Environmental Planning. The resolution stressed that in the absence of the Board, the following could not be done; the implementation of P. D. 1308; the formulation of the rules and regulation to govern the practice of planning, and licensing and the registration of existing professionals. In the same year, after 15 years of ”squatting” in various places, PIEP acquired a permanent office – the former Faculty Conference Room of SURP.

Starting with the October 1984 issue, the Philippine Planning Journal became a joint undertaking the PIEP eligible for membership in the Philippine Social Science Council. The Planner’s Code of Ethics was also refined in the same year.

Early in 1985, two bills were introduced in the Batasang Pambansa, namely, Parliamentary Bill No. 3200, entitled “ An Act Instituting a Professional Regulatory Code for the practice of different professions in the Philippines” and Parliamentary Bill No. 4304, entitled “ An Act Defining the Practice of Architecture,” the latter having been authored by Ruoerto C. Gaite. Alarmed by this turn of events, the PIEP under the incumbency of Cesar Concio released a position paper on February 7, 1985, emphatically pointing out the environmental planning should be included as a separate and distinct profession in Omnibus Bill No. 3200, among other profession regulated by the PRC.

On July 27, 1985, PIEP and SURP circulated this time a joint position paper strongly recommending, among others, the deletion from the coverage of architectural practice the following activities as contained in P. B. 3200 “ environmental planning, town and city planning, urban planning and design, physical and land use planning.” Realizing the threat to the survival of their profession, PIEP and SURP fought fiercely against the approval of the above bills and, staccato fashion, further sent another joint resolution to the legislature protesting the non – inclusion, in the first bill, of environmental planning as a profession under the regulation of PRC, and the inclusion, in the second bill, of a provision expanding the practice of architecture to include the domain of environmental planning.

In the interim years, even as the Board of Environmental Planning was waiting to be constituted, the two planning-biased bills fortunately remained pending in the legislature. But all the while, the PIEP was active in making environmental planning visible and useful to the nation through the holding of grand conferences, annual meetings, public for a, and lectures as well as the continuous introduction of amendments to its Charter and By-Laws.

When President Fidel V. Ramos won the Presidency in 1992, the PIEP, through the initiative of Arch. Serafin G. Aquino, Jr., saw a glimmer of hope for the professionalization of environmental planners in the new President, noting his awareness and appreciation of the planning discipline. During the PIEP 1993 Convention held on June 26, President Ramos showed his support for the profession by gracing the occasion and delivering a talk entitled “Development Imperatives for the Philippines: NIC by Year 2000.” On the auspicious long-awaited day of May 25, 1993, the Board of Environmental Planners was constituted by the President, in the process activating the implementation of the heretofore moribund P.D. 1308. The Board wasted no time in drawing up the “Rules and Regulations Governing the Examination, Registration, Licensure and the Practice of Environmental Planning.”

Since December 29, 1994, the Board has released four batches of PIEP members who were exempted from taking the Planning Board Examination. This group took their oath of practice on February 17, 1995 in a ceremony held at the Sulo Hotel, Quezon City. At long last, the planning profession has come of age and its recognition could not be any sweeter after the years of travail suffered by its leading lights and the licensing of its practitioners could not be more opportune than this time when the Philippines is at the threshold of NIChood.

« previous page