Short answer. Up to a limit. Rule 39, Section 13 exempts The professional libraries and equipment of a listed range of professionals, not exceeding three hundred thousand pesos in value. Above that ceiling the protection stops, and the exemption is tied to practising the profession.
What the law says
The professional libraries and equipment of judges, lawyers, physicians, pharmacists, dentists, engineers, surveyors, clergymen, teachers, and other professionals, not exceeding three hundred thousand pesos in value
Rule 39, Section 13 — Property exempt from execution. Read the full provision →
Who the clause covers
The section names judges, lawyers, physicians, pharmacists, dentists, engineers, surveyors, clergymen and teachers, then adds and other professionals. That closing phrase is not decoration — it keeps the clause from freezing in 1964 and lets it reach callings the drafters did not list. What holds the list together is that each is an occupation practised through knowledge and instruments: the books and equipment are how the work is done. An occupation that fits that description has a serious claim to the clause even though it is not named.
The three-hundred-thousand-peso ceiling
The exemption is capped at three hundred thousand pesos in value, which is a far larger allowance than the hundred thousand given to household furniture but still a real limit. A practice whose equipment is worth considerably more cannot place all of it behind this clause; the excess is exposed like any other property. The ceiling is stated in the rule itself, so it does not move with the market — treat it as a fixed allowance to be allocated rather than a floor that grows with what you own.
Library and equipment, not the business
What is protected is the professional library and equipment. That is narrower than the enterprise built around a profession. A clinic's reception furniture, its vehicles, its receivables and its stock of goods for sale are not the practitioner's professional library or equipment merely because a professional owns them. Read alongside the neighbouring clause on ordinary tools and implements personally used in a trade or livelihood, the pattern is consistent: the rules shelter the instruments of personal work, not capital deployed in a business.
Where the exemption gives way
Section 13 finishes by disapplying every exemption in it where the judgment being enforced was recovered for the price of the very item, or on a foreclosure of a mortgage over it. Equipment acquired on financing is the standard example. And because the clause turns on value and on professional use, both may have to be shown if a levy is contested — keep acquisition records and be ready to identify which items make up the allowance.