Status: Selection of nominees for the BME (3)

2 September 2012

The Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineers held its 8^th National Board Meeting last August 16, 2012 at the Villa Margarita Hotel in Davao (which actually was scheduled to synchronize also with the Society’s 15^th Mindanao Regional Conference held August 15-17 at the Waterfront Hotel). There were three of us, members of the national board, who arrived late for the meeting because our 9AM flight was delayed to 3PM. This was because the PAL Boeing 747 that was scheduled to take us to Davao was hit by lightning while flying from LA to Manila (and had to be towed to the hangar for checkup upon landing at the NAIA), and the airline had to arrange for another B747 for our flight.

Having caught practically just the tail end of the meeting, I had to rely on feedback from colleagues regarding what has transpired.  I was told that the BME Nominating Committee, chaired by Eng’r. Renato A. Florencio, presented already the list of 15 names as the committee’s nominees for the BME. This shall be my topic for today’s column.

So far, I have “zeroed in” on the concerns of the ME profession in 5 previous articles, namely, “Professional imbalance also an ME concern” (PJ,  4Dec11), “Ideas on the matter of RA8495 and the PME gap” (PJ, 17Mar12), “The BME and EO 496” (PJ, 28Apr12), “Status: Selection of nominees for the BME” (PJ 6/10/12), and “Status: Selection of nominees for the BME 2” (PJ, 19June2012).Today’s article is  going to be the 6^th on the concerns of the ME profession, and the third under the same title.

Why the focus on the BME? There are, for me, two major reasons which I have expounded on in my previous articles.

The first one is that “the BME is the one mandated by RA 8495 to regulate, as well as enhance, the profession (Sec.9g and Sec 9m), [and] it would be to the profession’s interest that we practitioners get involved in the selection process and try to influence it so that, we will hopefully have a new board that would truly live up to its mandate of also enhancing the mechanical engineering profession”.

And the second reason is “that the profession should break away from the ‘framework’ within which it has been operating during the past decades. It has to allow new approaches and ideas to flow in to enhance the profession and extricate it from the stagnation, if not deterioration, that it has experienced. And this, to my mind, can be achieved only if those that are at the apex of the profession – the BME – is composed of professionals who are [not only of impeccable integrity, but, aside from just being focused on the regulatory tasks, are also] focused on … [other means of enhancing] the mechanical engineering profession; … [individuals who] are receptive to changes, more creative, and willing to explore new methods (that are within the bounds of the ME law) which will enable them to achieve what is mandated; …[individuals who really] have the time, capacity and capability.”

Now that the BME NC has already submitted its report containing its list of 15 nominees, it is incumbent upon the PSME National Board to approve and submit the list to the PRC, given that the submission is way way past overdue. Perhaps it is necessary that a special meeting of the board with the Nominating Committee be conducted asap to discuss the list of nominees so as to facilitate its approval and immediate submission to the PRC.  Personally, I think that this task should not be difficult to accomplish since SEC. 8 (Submission of List of Nominees) of EO 496 says that “On the basis of the report of the Committee on Nominations, the National President of the duly accredited professional organization shall submit to the Professional Regulation Commission the resolution of the National Board of Directors recommending not more than five (5) nominees, ranked in the order of preference, for appointment to each vacancy in the professional regulatory Board…” The BME NC has done its task and submitted its report; it is now the turn of the PSME National Board to comply with the requirement of EO 496. There is no justification for further delay.

Again EO 496 mandates the PRC to immediately publish upon receipt the PSME resolution containing the list of nominees “in a newspaper or general circulation for the purpose of inviting anyone who may have derogatory information against any of the nominees which may render him unfit for the position to inform the said Commission within a period of ten (10) days from such publication. A copy of the list of the nominees shall also [be] presented on the bulletin board of the Commission.”  It is from this list of 15 that the PRC would get its list of 9 individuals that they would submit to the President of the Philippines, and from which the 3 new members of the BME shall be picked. This is where we practitioners can get involved. We should actively watch out for this list in the newspapers and actively monitor the PRC website (http://www.prc.gov.ph) so that we can react as needed to inform the PRC of any objection (especially integrity and corruption related issues) to any of the personalities in the list. I believe that “If we want to achieve something for ourselves, we [of the ME profession] have to work for it and not expect others to do the work for us”.

For this purpose the following contact information of the PRC Chairperson, sourced from the PRC website, can be useful: : email, prc_chairperson@yahoo.com; Landline, (632) 736-4880; Telefax, (632) 735-4476.

For those who may be interested, the other (earlier) articles previously mentioned can be accessed through my webpage (http://www.facebook.com/jtl3mekaniko), blog (mekaniko-sl3.blogspot.com) or the PSME NOW Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/psmenow?ref=hl). Also, comments/reactions from the readers, especially from the other 60,000 or more registered mechanical engineers, can be sent through this writer’s email (sl3.mekaniko@gmail.com) or through this writer’s blog (mekaniko-sl3.blogspot.com).