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Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Labor chief stops nurses' oath taking
MANILA -- Labor Secretary Arturo Brion ordered Monday the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) to stop the scheduled swearing-in of the June 2006 nursing board passers and asked the Court of Appeals (CA) to allow the limited retake of the licensure exams.
Brion directed the PRC to refrain from administering the oaths and issuing licenses at this time since the decision of the Appellate Court is not yet final. He added that the decision has not even been served yet.
The labor secretary's order is the second time the oath taking was stopped. In August the Court of Appeals issued a 60-day temporary restraining order against the oath taking of students who passed the June 2006 nursing licensure examination pending investigation on the test leakage.
The appellate court, in a ruling released last Friday, said only 1,687 examinees from the 17,821 board passers will retake tests 3 and 5 of the nursing board exam.
"The CA decision (on a selective retake of the test) is not yet final so if we will allow the oath-taking it would only aggravate the situation and will be more far from finding closure to the problem," Brion said.
What is best, he added, is for the PRC to defer the oath taking since various groups are set to file their respective motion for reconsideration of the court's decision.
"What will happen to the examinees if the PRC would proceed with the oath-taking and then eventually the CA reverses its decision," Brion asked.
"I sent a letter to the CA wherein I suggested that a limited retake of the licensure examination be allowed," said Brion.
However, he did not give details on his proposal except to say that it would provide a "win-win" solution to the controversy.
"I have met with those who are in favor of re-taking and those who are not and I could sense that there is a middle ground position that is almost all will accept and this is it the limited retake," he said.
Meanwhile, the University of Sto. Tomas (UST) College of Nursing faculty association pushed for wholesale, not selective, retake of Tests 3 and 5, which were tainted by leakage scandal.
The group led by faculty president Rene Luis Tadle asked the CA to reconsider its October 13 decision that paved the way for the oath taking of 1,687 nursing students who passed the June 11 and 12 nursing licensure exams.
Tadle said while they welcome the decision with respect to the nullification of Resolution No. 31, which orders the invalidation of 20 items in Test 3 and re-computation of scores in Test 5, the CA failed to address the culpability of officials who participated in the leakage.
"The decision raised more questions than answers. It did not address the issue of the leakage itself and how it affected and continues to affect the integrity of the nursing licensure examination (NLE). On the matter of selective retake of Tests 3 and 5 of 1,687 examinees, it seems that these examinees were given undue advantage over others who did not pass. If the effect of the leakage remained in the NLE, the integrity of the examination remains in question," said the petitioners.
The appellate court's order for a selective re-taking of the 1,687 examinees, according to the petitioners, violate the right to equal protection of all those who took the exams.
"To solve this issue, petitioners prayed for a retake of Tests 3 and most especially, Test 5. Indeed, the Court ordered a selective retake for the two tests but it discriminated against those who passed but did not cheat, and those who did not cheat, and it favored those who passed and cheated," they said.
They further pointed out the admission made by RA Gapuz Review Center and its sister review company, Millennium Review Specialists, during oral arguments that they have 21 branches nationwide.
"This was not disputed by respondent PRC and Board of Nursing (BON) during the hearing or in their memorandum, and this multiplied the chances that the leaked test questions were extensively disseminated," said Tadle.
In its ruling, the CA ordered the selective retake of Tests 3 and 5 among the 1,687 examinees whose names were included in the list of successful examinees following the implementation of PRC's Resolution No. 31.
Test 3 is on medical/surgical nursing exam while Test 5 is on the neuro-psychiatric nursing exam.
The CA ruling was issued a day after criminal charges were filed against two members of the BON and 17 officers and owners of three nursing review centers. It was concurred in by CA Presiding Justice Ruben Reyes and Associate Justice Juan Enriquez Jr.
The CA, likewise, ordered the immediate oath taking of the 17,324 out of 42,600 nursing graduates who originally passed the NLE. (MSN/ECV/Sunnex)
(October 17, 2006 issue)
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