Short answer. Yes. RA 9262 requires a healthcare provider who suspects abuse, or who has been informed of violence by the victim, to automatically provide her a medical certificate concerning the examination or visit, free of charge. The word automatically means you should not have to ask for it.
What the law says
automatically provide the victim free of charge a medical certificate concerning the examination or visit
RA 9262, Section 31 — Healthcare Provider Response. Read the full provision →
Two words are doing the work
Automatically puts the initiative on the provider: the certificate is something the visit produces, not something you have to know to request. Free of charge removes the other obstacle, which is that a certificate you cannot pay for is a certificate you do not have. Read together they describe a document that should be in your hand when you leave. If you are asked to come back for it or to pay for it, this is the provision to point to, calmly and by name.
Who the duty falls on
The Act casts the net wide. It applies to any healthcare provider, and the people it names — an attending physician, a nurse, a clinician, a barangay health worker, a therapist, a counsellor — are given as examples rather than as a closed list. So this is not confined to a hospital emergency room. A barangay health station is within it, and so is a therapist or counsellor you see for something other than a physical injury.
What sets the duty running
Either of two things. The provider may suspect abuse, or may have been informed of violence by the victim. That the first of those is enough matters: the duties are not conditional on you making a formal disclosure, and they are certainly not conditional on your having filed anything anywhere. Equally, telling a provider what happened is enough on its own. Nothing in the provision requires a police report, a barangay record or a pending case first. What the duty does not do is make the provider your representative: it binds the clinician who saw you, and it produces a document, not a filing. Whether your own doctor, counsellor or therapist may go further and apply for a protection order on your behalf is a separate question, answered by a different section.
The certificate is one of five duties
The others are worth knowing because they shape what exists afterwards. The provider is to properly document physical, emotional or psychological injuries, and to properly record observations and the circumstances of the visit; to safeguard those records and make them available to you on request at actual cost; and to give you immediate and adequate notice of the rights and remedies under the Act and the services available. Note the distinction on money: the certificate is free of charge, while copies of the records themselves are at actual cost.
Related provisions
- RA 9262, Section 35 — Rights Of Victims
- RA 9262, Section 44 — Confidentiality
- RA 9262, Section 9 — Who May File