WHEN HISTORY BECAME LAW: From the Centennial of Philippine Dentistry to the Making of the Philippine Dental Act of 2007

 

 

  The Philippine Dental Law 

Legislative Digest II, 2008–2009 
This legislative digest documents the institutional and legislative history that followed the 2004 appointment of the seven-member PDA Legislation Committee, of which I was a member.

 

 WHEN HISTORY BECAME LAW

From the Centennial of Philippine Dentistry to the Making of the Philippine Dental Act of 2007

by: Dr. Norman R. Songco 

 

There are moments in a professional life when one's work ceases to be confined to the practice of a profession and enters the larger history of the institution to which that profession belongs.

For me, one such moment came on July 6, 2004, when I was appointed as one of seven members of the Philippine Dental Association's Legislation Committee tasked with reviewing and updating the proposed amendments to the Philippine Dental Act of 1965.

The appointment came only a year after the Centennial of Philippine Dentistry in 2003, an undertaking through which I had become deeply engaged in researching, documenting, preserving, and presenting the history of Philippine dentistry.

The two responsibilities may initially appear unrelated.

One concerned the past.

The other concerned the future.

In retrospect, however, they were part of the same continuum.

 

From Remembering the Profession to Helping Shape It

The Centennial had compelled me to look backward.

I had to recover records, examine historical accounts, trace institutional developments, identify significant personalities, preserve documentary materials, and reconstruct a century of Philippine dental history. It taught me that a profession is not defined solely by what its practitioners do in the present. It is also defined by the institutions, laws, traditions, and collective memory that have accumulated through time.

The 2004 legislative appointment placed me on the other side of that historical continuum.

I was no longer looking only at what Philippine dentistry had been.

I was participating in a professional process concerned with what Philippine dentistry would become.

The Legislation Committee was appointed under the leadership of Dr. Diampo J. Lim, former Dean of the University of the East College of Dentistry and Past President of the Philippine Dental Association. Its members brought together considerable experience in dental education, professional regulation, association leadership, and the governance of the profession.

I was privileged to be one of those seven.

Our mandate was to review the proposed amendments to the existing dental law and to work toward a revised and new legislative framework appropriate to the contemporary profession.

It was an important responsibility because the existing Dental Act of 1965 had already governed Philippine dentistry for decades. The profession had changed considerably during that period. Dental education had evolved. Professional practice had expanded. Technology had transformed clinical work. Regulatory expectations had developed. The relationship between the dental profession, the State, and the public had likewise become more complex.

The question was therefore not simply how to modify an old statute.

It was how to bring the law into correspondence with a changing profession.

 

The Seven-Member Mandate

The seven-member committee represented a convergence of professional experience at a particular point in the history of Philippine dentistry.

Its members were:

Dr. Diampo J. Lim — Committee Head; former Dean, University of the East College of Dentistry, and Past National President of the Philippine Dental Association.

Dr. Aurelio B. Ramos Jr. — Former Dean, UP College of Dentistry, and former Chairman of the Board of Dentistry.

Dr. Victor R. Valdez — Former Speaker, Philippine Dental Association House of Delegates.

Dr. Primo E. Gonzalez — Former Chairman of the Board of Dentistry and Past National President of the Philippine Dental Association.

Dr. Antonio A. Baldemor — Former Chairman of the Board of Dentistry.

Dr. Norman R. Songco — Overall National Chairman, 100 Years of Philippine Dentistry.

Dr. Hermogenes P. Villareal — Past National President of the Philippine Dental Association.

 

Their backgrounds reflected different dimensions of professional leadership—academic dentistry, professional regulation, association governance, and institutional experience.

My own presence in that group had an additional dimension.

Having just completed the Centennial undertaking, I had spent considerable time examining how Philippine dentistry had developed as an institution. I had encountered its earlier laws, organizations, leaders, educational institutions, and historical milestones. That experience gave me a particular appreciation of the relationship between the profession's historical development and the laws through which that development was eventually formalized.

A profession remembers itself through history.

A profession governs itself through institutions and law.

The two are inseparable.

 

From the Dental Act of 1965 to a New Statute

The legislative undertaking eventually moved beyond the committee stage and into the formal processes of Congress.

What began as a professional review in 2004 ultimately became Republic Act No. 9484, the Philippine Dental Act of 2007, approved on June 2, 2007.

The law repealed Republic Act No. 4419, the Dental Act of 1965, and Republic Act No. 768, and established a new statutory framework governing dentistry, dental hygiene, and dental technology in the Philippines.

Its provisions addressed professional regulation, licensure and registration, the Professional Regulatory Board of Dentistry, professional practice, education, continuing professional development, ethical responsibilities, professional integration, and related regulatory matters.

In other words, the legislative undertaking had moved from the question of whether an older law remained adequate to the creation of a substantially renewed legal framework for the profession.

That transition is historically significant.

A profession does not simply inherit its future.

At certain points in its history, it must consciously redefine the structures through which that future will be governed.

 

A Different Kind of Professional Contribution

My participation in this process occupies a distinctive place in my professional record.

It was not clinical practice.

It was not academic teaching.

It was not simply association administration.

And it was not historical writing in the conventional sense.

It was participation in the institutional and legislative development of the profession itself.

This distinction matters.

The Centennial of Philippine Dentistry had given me the opportunity to document where the profession had come from. The Legislation Committee gave me an opportunity to participate in a process concerned with where the profession was going.

The first preserved memory.

The second helped shape institutional direction.

Viewed together, they reveal a continuity in my engagement with Philippine dentistry that is not immediately apparent when these activities are considered separately.

 

The Historian at the Legislative Table

I did not enter the legislative process as a lawyer or professional legislator.

I entered it as a dentist who had spent years becoming increasingly conscious of the historical and institutional character of the profession.

That distinction is important to me.

The work of preserving professional history and the work of developing professional legislation may appear to belong to different worlds. Yet both require the same fundamental discipline: understanding what came before, examining the present carefully, and considering the consequences of decisions that will affect those who come after.

History asks:

What happened, and why does it matter?

Legislation asks:

What should the profession become, and what framework will allow it to get there?

My involvement in both questions became one of the defining continuities of my professional life.

 

When History Became Law

The enactment of Republic Act No. 9484 in 2007 marked the culmination of a legislative process in which the 2004 PDA Legislation Committee formed an important professional component.

For me, therefore, RA 9484 is not simply a statute that governs the dental profession.

It is also part of the historical record of a period when Philippine dentistry consciously examined its inherited legal framework and sought to establish a new one.

My appointment to the seven-member committee placed me within that historical process. The documentary record of the undertaking identifies the seven members as the professionals entrusted with the review and development of the proposed new dental legislation.

It was a moment when the work of documenting the profession's past intersected with the work of shaping its institutional future.

That intersection has become particularly meaningful in retrospect.

The Centennial had taught me that history must be recovered before it can be preserved.

The legislative experience taught me something complementary:

the future of a profession must also be consciously constructed before it can become history.

 

A Continuing Record

I regard my participation in the 2004 Legislation Committee as part of a larger body of work concerning the history, identity, institutions, and development of Philippine dentistry.

The Centennial of 2003 allowed me to recover and disseminate the profession's historical memory.

The legislative undertaking of 2004 and the subsequent enactment of RA 9484 connected that historical understanding to the profession's institutional future.

My later historical writings and documentary work continued this engagement with Philippine dentistry, extending the effort beyond a single anniversary or legislative undertaking.

Seen from this longer perspective, the 2004 appointment was not an isolated professional distinction.

It was another chapter in a continuing engagement with the profession as a historical and institutional subject.

I had begun by asking how Philippine dentistry came to be.

I found myself subsequently participating in a process that asked what Philippine dentistry should become.

Between those two questions lies a significant part of my professional journey.

And somewhere along that passage, history became law.