WHEREAS, there is a need to amend Sections 18, 25 and 39 of the Pharmacy Law to give all Filipinos equal opportunities in the pursuit of the pharmacy profession and in the sale of medicine and drugs;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution in order to clarify Sections 18, 25 and 39 of Republic Act No. 5921, do hereby order and decree:

SECTION 1. Section 18 of Republic Act No. 5921 is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 18. Candidate for board examination.—A candidate for the board examination in Pharmacy shall have the following qualifications:

"(a) He shall be a citizen of the Philippines;

"(b) He shall be of good moral character;

"(c) He shall have completed an internship Program which shall consist of at least nine hundred sixty hours, one-half of which shall be spent equally distributed in a prescription pharmacy, a pharmaceutical manufacturing laboratory and a hospital pharmacy duly accredited by the Council of Pharmacy and the rest of the hours of internship shall be spent in any or all of the said establishments at the choice of the candidate.

For this purpose, the above-mentioned prescription pharmacy, pharmaceutical manufacturing laboratory and hospital pharmacy shall keep a separate record of pharmacy students who have undergone said internship program directly under their control and as a result thereof shall issue the proper certificate of said hours of internship. It shall also be the duty of said establishments to submit annually a complete report of the names of those who have undergone training under their supervision and corresponding number of hours of internship credit of each of the pharmacy students to their respective colleges or school and to the Board of Pharmacy for proper accreditation; and

"(d) He shall have graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy or with an equivalent degree from a school, college or university duly accredited by the Council of Pharmaceutical Education after satisfactorily completing a standards pharmacy course of not less than five academic years;

PROVIDED, however, that certificates of registration as pharmacists may be issued to those examinees in the pharmacists examinations who could not register because they acquired Philippine citizenship by election or naturalization.

SEC. 2. Section 25 of the Same Act is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 25. Sale of medicine, pharmaceuticals, drugs and devices. No medicine, pharmaceutical, or drug of whatever nature and kind or device shall be compounded, dispensed, sold or resold, or otherwise be made available to the consuming public except through a prescription drugstore or hospital pharmacy, duly established in accordance with the provisions of this Act.

"Pharmaceutical, drug or biological manufacturing establishments, importers and wholesalers of drugs, medicines or biologic products, shall not sell their products for re-sale except only to retail drugstores, hospital pharmacies or to other drug wholesalers under the supervision of registered pharmacists, duly established and licensed under the Retail Trade Law.

SEC. 3. Section 39 of the same Act is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 39. Requirements for the opening and operation of drugstores and pharmacies. The minimum requirements necessary for the opening and operation of drugstores and pharmacies shall be in accordance with the rules and regulations to be prescribed by the Food and Drug Administration in accordance with the provisions of this Act. No application for the opening of a retail drugstore shall be approved unless it is signed by a Filipino registered pharmacists, either as owner or as supervising pharmacist pursuant to section twenty-seven of this Act.

SEC. 4. Any provision of existing laws, rules and regulations in conflict with this Decree are hereby modified or repealed accordingly.

Done in the City of Manila, this 2nd day of May, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-eight.

			(Sgd.) FERDINAND E. MARCOS President of the Philippines
	By the President:
	(Sgd.) JUAN C. TUVERA
		Presidential Assistant