Citation:	Foundations of Guidance
Reviewer:	Vicentita Cervera
Category:	recognize and honor the men and women who gave their time, effort and resources from the conception up to the time when the profession bloomed with the passage of Republic Act 9258 otherwise known as “The Guidance Act of 2004”
Genre:	Professional
CACREP Core Area:	Professional Counseling
CACREP Specialty Area:	Guidance and Counseling
Subject Headings:	Counseling in the Phillippines
Review:	Cervera, V. (2009). Foundations of guidance. Quezon City, PI: Great Books Publishing.   The book is a benchmark work on guidance and counseling in the Philippines, focusing on the foundations of guidance as practiced in the country. The author wrote the book to recognize and honor the men and women who gave their time, effort, and resources from the origins of the profession up to its blossoming with the passage of Republic Act 9258, otherwise known as "The Guidance Act of 2004." The field of guidance and counseling--as Filipino counselors know the field today--owes its existence to their vision.   The first chapter discusses the meaning and practice of guidance and counseling--first, from how it has been defined according to the review of 30 years of empirical research and national standards made by Borders and Drury (1992) and spanning to how it has been defined by Republic Act 9258. That is the legal basis of the practice of the profession in the Philippines. The chapter also makes a distinction of the profession from psychology and human resources development.   The book traces the philosophical foundations of guidance from the ethnological and philosophical foundation of the profession as practiced in the Philippines by Filipinos. Starting with the so-called matrix of the Filipino culture, it proceeds to the general definition of philosophy and the philosophy of guidance and then to ethnophilosophy as defined and discussed by Filipino philosophers.   To understand philosophical foundations of guidance and counseling, the author unearths the historical foundations dating back to pre-Spanish Philippines then proceeding through the 355 years of colonial rule by Spaniards, the 50 years of colonial rule by Americans, and the more than 50 years of self-rule as a republic.   The book ends with a chapter on the future of guidance and counseling as a profession in the Philippines, a member-country of the ASEAN. It poses a powerful question: Will this membership result in a philosophy of career guidance that helps young Filipinos participate and look to a future of a single, free-trade area by 2015 in a region of 500 million people?