Thursday, October 12, 2006 Official urges Cebu nurses to retake exam to ensure employment abroad
THE National Government feels for Cebuanos who were part of the 2006 nursing board exams, but this does not erase the fact that their competency has been tainted.
This is why Dante Ang, chairman of the Commission of Filipinos Overseas, believes that a retake of the June 11 and 12 exams is the only answer for nursing graduates to be employable in foreign countries, particularly the United States.
“Naawa tayo sa mga nurses from Cebu, the Visayas and Mindanao. Pero yun nga lang malas lang nila yung sinalihan nila na contest o examination eh tainted, mali ang system, mali ang computation, binigyan pa nang bonus,” Ang said in a radio interview yesterday. (We pity the nurses from Visayas and Mindanao but they were unlucky to have been part of a tainted exercise.)
Questionable
The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) recomputed tests III and V, which was reportedly the tests affected by the cheating, and according to Ang, a two-percent bonus was added to the score of the examinees.
The “recomputation of grades” made the system questionable and therefore making the results of the exam as well as the competence of the board examinees questionable, said Ang.
“But it was not the fault of the examinees,” he clarified.
But PRC 7 Acting Director Dan Malayang believes that a retake is not the answer.
He had told Sun.Star Cebu that competency of nurses was measured on day one when they enrolled in nursing.
In an interview yesterday, Malayang stood firm in his stand that there should be “no retake” and that the government should instead wait for the result of the pending petition at the Court of Appeals in Manila.
Petitioners Rene Luis Tadle, president of the University of Sto. Tomas (UST), College of Nursing; Earl Francis Sumile, president of the League of Concerned Nurses; and Michael Angelo Brant, president of Binuklod na Samahan ng mga Student Nurses filed a petition for prohibition before the CA.
They wanted PRC and the Board of Nursing to be prevented from conducting the oath-taking of the 2006 nursing board passers.
A 60-day TRO was issued by the CA. Once the TRO ends on Oct. 18, the PRC hopes to resume the oath-taking of the nursing graduates.
Instructions
Malayang said he will wait for instructions from the PRC Central Office and if the answer is favorable, then he will conduct the oath-taking immediately.
Last Aug. 17 and 18, PRC 7 took the oath of 1,555 nursing graduates out of the 1,723 Cebuano nurses who passed the controversial board exam, beating the TRO issued on Aug. 18.
Malayang assured the public that no cheating happened in Cebu. This is what he told the National Bureau of Investigation 7 when the bureau sent an agent to Malayang’s office last Friday.
President Arroyo ordered the NBI to investigate the cheating. The investigation is conducted nationwide.
Cebu City Councilor Edgardo Labella, lawyer for the Cebu-based nursing graduates who filed an intervention in the CA petition, also said that the cheating was confined in Baguio and Manila.
Ang, however, said this not a good-enough defense. (JGA)
