Pursuant to Act 3846, RA 7925 and other applicable international and national laws and conventions, the conduct of all classes of radio operators examinations and the issuance and release of the results thereof, are hereby decentralized to the Regional Offices under the direct supervision and control of the Regional Director, in accordance with the following guidelines:

1.         The Regional Directors shall submit to the Commissioner their annual schedule of regular radio operators' examination not later than the fifteenth day of January of each year specifying the venue and date of said examinations. A Master List of examinees for each scheduled examination shall be submitted to the Commissioner not later than one week before examination date and which shall be final.

2.         A special radio operators' examination may be scheduled provided that there are written request or applications by at least one hundred (100) examinees. No special examination shall be scheduled earlier than fifteen (15) days from date of request. Likewise, a Master List of examinees for each special examination shall be submitted to the Commissioner not later than one (1) week before the examination date and which shall be final. The Regional Director shall inform the Commissioner of any postponement, change of venue or re-scheduling thereof.

3.         The new Questionnaires Committee shall be created fifteen (15) days after effectivity date of this Circular which shall exist on an adhoc basis, who shall review the existing database of questions and provide the Regional Offices 400 questions for each element as an initial database, the same shall be grouped according to category of question per elements and shall be revised, improved or updated, as the need arises.

4.         The examination shall start with the extraction of examination questions per element through a computer random selection software provided by the Information Technology Unit, NTC, for direct printing on stencil and immediate reproduction. The access to the questionnaires database, extraction, reproduction, packing and dispatching of questionnaires to examination rooms shall be done and completed not more than five (5) hours for special examination and in regular examinations where there are no more than five hundred (500) examinees. In all other cases, it shall not be more than eighteen (18) hours before actual start of the examination. In both instances, the examination shall be under the direct supervision of the Regional Director, which function cannot be delegated.

5.         The answer sheets shall be prepared by the Regional Licensing Unit and initialed by a responsible official/ personnel who is not a member of the Regional Examination Committee (REC) constituted by the Regional Director.

The list of personnel who extracted, printed, sorted, packed and dispatched the questionnaires including watchers and the person who initialed the answer sheets shall be identified in a Memorandum Order issued by the Regional Director prior to examination, a copy of which shall be transmitted to the Commissioner with the Master List not later than one week before actual examination date, copy furnished all concerned personnel.

6.         Upon written request, representatives of concerned groups and individuals, i.e. PARA, amateur groups (ARCP), civic action groups, accredited radio training schools etc., may be allowed as observers in the conduct of said examination in the validation/re-validation, checking/re- checking of answer sheets, up to the preparation and release of Master List Result.

Identification cards shall be issued by the Regional Director to all proctors, REC members, watchers and observers present in the conduct of any radio operators' examination.

7.         Under the personal supervision of the Regional Director, all blanks and/or double answers in submitted answer sheets shall be crossed out by the Regional Examination. Committee (REC) members; after which examinees shall correct their own examination papers, affixing thereto his/ her signatures and date in the portion of answer sheets marked as "corrected by".

The REC shall immediately review and re-check all answer sheets on the same day of the examination and any member of the REC who participated in the re-checking process shall also affix his/her signatures in the portion of the answer sheet marked as "re-checked by".

8.         After the thorough and careful revalidation of all examination results, the Official Master List Result shall be released by the Regional Director, copy furnished all Regional Offices, the Central Records Section and the Commissioner. No modifications and/or alterations shall be allowed after the Master List Result is released.

9.  All examination files together with the duly accomplished application forms, supporting documents (birth certificate, diploma, transcript of scholastic records, etc.) and answer sheets shall be kept in the regional office who conducted the examination for records purposes

This Circular may be modified or amended when deemed necessary in the interest of public service and in compliance with law

Any violation hereof shall be dealt with in accordance with existing laws.

Any circular, order or memorandum which is inconsistent therewith is deemed superseded.

Adopted 02 April 1997