Short answer. Yes. Article 52 grants an additional deduction from taxable income of one-half of the value of labour training expenses incurred for development programmes other than apprenticeship, provided the programme is approved by the Council and the deduction does not exceed ten percent of the direct labour wage.
What the law says
An additional deduction from taxable income of one-half (1/2) of the value of labor training expenses incurred for development programs shall be granted to the person or enterprise concerned provided that such development programs, other than apprenticeship, are approved by the Council
Labor Code, Article 52 — Incentive Scheme For Training. Read the full provision →
A parallel scheme, deliberately worded the same way
The grant is of an additional deduction from taxable income of one-half (1/2) of the value of labor training expenses incurred for development programs, given to the person or enterprise concerned. The formula — half the training expense, deducted in addition to the ordinary treatment of the cost, capped at ten percent of direct labour wage — is the same one the Code uses for apprenticeship. What differs is the category of programme and, crucially, who has to approve it. The two schemes were built to cover the field between them rather than to compete.
"Other than apprenticeship" is the sorting rule
Those three words decide which provision you are under. A programme meeting the Code's description of apprenticeship falls to the apprenticeship incentive with its own conditions; a development programme that is not apprenticeship falls here. The distinction matters because the conditions attached differ, and a company that assumes the incentives are interchangeable can end up satisfying the conditions of the scheme it is not claiming under. Classify the programme first, on what it actually is, and only then work through the conditions that go with it.
Approval by the Council is a precondition
The deduction is granted provided that such development programs, other than apprenticeship, are approved by the Council. This is not an incentive a company assesses for itself and claims. Approval has to exist, and it has to relate to the programme actually run. That has an obvious practical consequence: approval is sought before the training, not after the expense has been incurred, because a condition expressed in the past participle cannot be met by a submission made once the year has closed.
One caution the article itself invites
The provision ends by saying there shall be a review of the scheme two years after its implementation. It was written, in other words, as something expected to be revisited, and the institutional arrangements around training incentives in the Philippines have changed considerably since the Code was enacted. So treat this article as establishing that the incentive exists and on what terms, and confirm the current administrative position — which body approves, and how — before building a claim on it. That is a question for your tax adviser as much as a legal one.