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Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Palace appeals to hospitals; PB oppose exam retake
MALACANANG on Tuesday appealed to public and private hospitals to reconsider their decision to stop hiring nurses who passed the 2006 exams in view of the leakage that clouded the credibility of the examination.
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo believes that those who passed the 2006 board exam fairly "should not suffer from the dishonesty of a few".
Bunye, who is also Presidential spokesman, said a retake is "unnecessary and unfair", especially for many of the examinees who come from poor families that worked hard for their children to become nurses.
Arroyo said in an interview in Guimaras that she is still waiting for the report of the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) on the alleged leakage in the nursing board exams so that she could decide whether or not there should be a retake.
Arroyo earlier ordered PRC chair Leonor Rocero to find a solution to the problem that does not involve punishing the innocent with the guilty.
"The incident should serve as a lesson and a warning to those engaged in such dishonest acts that they not only destroy themselves but also their peers and the profession that they aspire to be part of," Bunye said.
Arroyo has ordered a reorganization of the nursing board and the replacement of the nursing examiners.
She said she will issue an executive order placing the nursing board under the regulations of the Commission on Higher Education (Ched). She said she will also place the PRC under the labor department so that the issue of what to do with the incident could be tackled at the Cabinet level.
Oppose
Meanwhile, the Iloilo Provincial Board, during its session yesterday, unanimously opposed the re-take of the Nursing Board Exam.
Governed by the connotation that "it's better to free the guilty than incarcerate the innocent," the PB members were unified with the plight of the nursing licensure exam passers and their families who filled the session hall yesterday.
The group of parents which were led by Board Member Cecilia Capadosa, also a mother of a board passer, initially asked the body to write a letter to Arroyo for her intervention on the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on oath-taking ceremonies for nurses, issued by the Court favorable to the University of Sto. Tomas-assailant.
The Court also provided for the halt in giving licenses to passers pending the investigation on the source and users of the "exam leakage."
Futile
Board Member and lawyer Domingo B. Oso Jr., said while he sympathizes with the plight of the new nurses, asking the President to intervene might be futile because the matter of the TRO is already in court.
"What the thousands of passers here can do is influence public opinion by using the media as the outlet and encourage mass protest so that their grievance will reach the CA, the issuing court.
No leakage
The board members also united with the notion that the leakage did not happen in Western Visayas.
Manila is too far from here, Oso said.
Vice Governor Roberto Armada also expressed conviction on this belief.(LABB/Sunnex)
(August 30, 2006 issue)
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