HONG KONG/LEIPZIG, Germany: The president of the Philippine Dental Association, Dr Leo Gerald R. de Castro, has called for standardised guideline procedures on the delivery of health services following a recent agreement of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to allow dentists from the Philippines to work in other member states. De Castro said that currently not all countries in the ASEAN region have established standard guidelines on the matter of Continuing Professional Education (CPE) and these circumstances could lower the chances of employment for Filipino professionals in these countries.

Castro told Dental Tribune Asia Pacific that consultation with the various heads of professions involved in this agreement should have taken place prior to forging ties with the ASEAN neighbours which could have led to further ironing of kinks in the programme, thereby making it a better-laid out foreign reciprocity programme.

 He added that countries like Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and Korea have had guidelines in place long before the agreement was made, but in the Philippines, the system was stopped and the earning of CPE points became optional for almost ten years.

“Recently, owing to the passage of the new dental law in the Philippines, the acquisition of CPE credit units became mandatory again, but unfortunately, the almost ten-year lull took away precious credit units earned by our dentists.” De Castro said. “As a member of the academe, a part of me, views this as a noble programme but the other part disagrees in the sense that not all member countries are on equal footing.”