Saturday, October 14, 2006 Editorials: Conjectures and the ‘retake’
* The decision on whether or not to order the 2006 nursing board examinees to retake the tests is much too sensitive and controversial to be left in the hands of flip-flopping and unenlightened officials
Malacañang's decision to order the June 2006 examinees to retake the nursing board exams stands on two legs: that the leak of some test answers was widespread and employers abroad have lost confidence in the country's nurses.
When Malacañang arrived at that decision earlier, those arguments were mere hunches, meaning, they needed verification to be acceptable.
Now the first leg has been crippled after the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) released the result of its investigation on the board exam fiasco and concluded that the leak involved only a few review centers in Luzon and only to portions of the tests. Which is but a small percentage of the number of examinees nationwide.
Nurses’ image abroad
Meanwhile, Malacañang has not come up with a decent enough effort to solidify the basis of the claim about the negative effect of the controversy on the image of the country's nurses abroad.
Thus, unlike the insinuation that the spread of the leak was probably massive, which was proven false, Malacañang can't be conclusive in its theory that employers abroad will no longer hire Filipino nurses because they cheat in licensure exams.
NBI’s findings
Worse, even with the NBI proving them wrong about the extent of the cheating, some Malacañang functionaries like Dante Ang and Ricardo Saludo continue to peddle tales of unseen nursing board exam ghosts.
They are insisting on faulty comparisons---from cheating in the classroom to the erroneous printing of peso bills---and even expressed doubts or downplayed the significance of NBI’s findings.
On the other hand, they are cold to information contradicting their theories about the bad effects of the leakage issue on the image of our nurses abroad.
Sensitive, controversial
This actuation should impact negatively on people’s assessment of the decision-making process in Malacañang, what with the officials relying more on conjectures rather than on hard facts.
Indeed, the decision on whether or not to order the 2006 nursing board examinees to retake the tests is much too sensitive and controversial to be left in the hands of flip-flopping and unenlightened officials.
