An Act to Amend Sections Eight Hundred and Nine, Eight Hundred and Eleven, Eight Hundred and Seventeen, and Eight Hundred and Eighteen of the Administrative Code, Authorizing the Holding of a Special Examination for Opticians, under Certain Conditions

March 4, 1919

ACT NO. 2813

AN ACT TO AMEND SECTIONS EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINE, EIGHT HUNDRED AND ELEVEN, EIGHT HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN, AND EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE, AUTHORIZING THE HOLDING OF A SPECIAL EXAMINATION FOR OPTICIANS, UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS

SECTION 1. Section eight hundred and nine of the Administrative Code is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 809. Board of Examiners: appointment of members and substitution thereof. — The Secretary of the Interior shall appoint a Board of Optical Examiners consisting of three reputable opticians practicing the optical profession in the Philippine Islands at the time of their appointment and graduates of any reputable university, academy, college, school or institution legally constituted and recognized as such by the Government or the State in which established. They shall hold office for three years after their appointment, and until their successors are duly appointed and qualified.

"The Secretary of the Interior shall fill any vacancy that may occur in the Board of Examiners, designating a duly qualified optician, and the person so appointed to fill a vacancy shall hold office only for the unexpired term of the member whose place he is appointed to fill. The Secretary of the Interior may remove any member of said Board for neglect of duty, or incompetency, or for unprofessional or dishonorable conduct, or for any other just cause."

SECTION 2. Section eight hundred and eleven of the Administrative Code is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 811. Meetings, examinations. — The Board of Optical Examiners shall meet in the city of Manila for the purpose of examining candidates desiring to practice the optical profession in the Philippine Islands on the fourth Tuesday of April and October of each year, upon at least thirty days notice published in the most widely read newspapers of the locality."

SECTION 3. Section eight hundred and seventeen of the Administrative Code is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 817. Prohibitions. — It shall be unlawful for any person to advertise or practice as optician without having the certificate prescribed in this chapter. However, the provisions of this chapter shall not be construed to apply to any person selling as merchandise ready-made eye-glasses, spectacles or any other optical instrument, unless such person make use of the trial case or of practical and objective mechanical devices for the determination of the state of refraction and the accommodation of the vision; nor shall they be construed to be applicable to registered physicians and surgeons in the legitimate practice of their profession."

SECTION 4. Section eight hundred and eighteen of the Administrative Code is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 818. Who are opticians. — For the purposes of this chapter, an optician shall be any person making use of any means other than drugs for examining the vision or adapting lenses to aid the same, or who, selling spectacles, eyeglasses or other optical articles, used for the examination of the vision lenses other than those kept for sale by him." cAaDHT

SECTION 5. The present Board of Optical Examiners is hereby authorized to hold a special examinations, within three months from and after the approval of this Act, exclusively for persons who, on March eleventh, nineteen hundred and eighteen, had been practising the profession of optician for a period of not less than one year prior to said date, with an establishment legally open to the public, without having the proper diploma. Said examination shall be practical and shall be made by means of the trial case.

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect on its approval.

Approved: March 4, 1919.