MANILA, 13 October 2006 — The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) filed a criminal complaint yesterday against 17 officials of three nursing review centers linked to the June licensure examination scandal.
A complaint signed by NBI Director Nestor Mantaring said all those in its charge list were from the R.A. Gapuz Review Center, Inress Review Center and Pentagon Review Specialists, which prepare nursing graduates for the licensure exams.
Named in the charge sheet were Ricarte Gapuz, Evangeline Gapuz, Ma. Elena Altarejos, Elizabeth Iciano and Eleanor Gapuz of the R.A. Gapuz; George Cordero, Adela Cordero, Jerry Cordero, Corazon Sabado, Macjohn Fabian, Lolita Barlahan, and Eugenia Alcantara from Inress; and Gerald Andamo, lawyer Glenn Luansing, Mike Jimenes, Jerome Balisnomo and Freddi Valdez from Pentagon Review Center.
Elfren Meneses, chief of NBI’s anti-fraud division, said the bureau has enough evidence against the 17 to prove their participation in spreading the leakage including manuscripts of questions, both handwritten and typewritten, that were leaked to the nursing graduates prior to the examinations.
Meneses said the bureau did not have sufficient evidence to charge any of the examinees who may have benefited from the leak.
The NBI has earlier filed a criminal complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman against Board of Nursing officials Anisia Dionisio and Virginia Madeja, who were identified as the likely source of leaked test questions.
Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño, who received the NBI report, said the Department of Justice will form a panel to conduct a preliminary investigation.
The panel would evaluate the NBI report, summon the 17 officials, and determine whether there would be basis to file a case against them in court.
Meneses said the bureau’s witnesses in the case include students who photocopied the leaked questions.
No Doubt About Leak
While taking note of the review centers’ claims that providing “tips” was a normal practice to lure students to enroll in their institutions, the complaint file by the NBI said: “What actually transpired was a leakage in every sense of the word. Indeed, the review centers possessed and discussed questions with even the prescribed answers, clearly they must have too valuable materials that have originated from the persons who prepared the exams.”
Review centers are considered one of the money-making industries in the country, with each nursing student required a fee of up to 40,000 pesos.
“We have gathered the manuscripts of questions prepared by the Board of Nursing which were leaked to the three nursing review centers, and they leaked it to the examinees,” said the complaint.
Mantaring earlier clarified the evidence gathered by the bureau only proves that cheating took place in Manila and in the northern city of Baguio. He said they have not evidence so far to support rumors that cheating occurred in other cities.
But Zuño said other review centers outside Baguio and Manila are not off the hook yet. He said DOJ might subpoena other people not included in the NBI’s report during the course of its own investigation.
A report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer earlier quoted a nursing reviewer in Davao City as saying he had also gotten wind of a leakage in the central and southern Philippines.
Rene Luis Tadle, president of the faculty association of the UST College of Nursing, earlier said Gapuz has 16 centers which conduct reviews elsewhere. It also has its subsidiary Millennium, which has 15 centers, Pentagon has two, and St. Louis has 10.
Tadle also noted that the Gapuz Review Center itself placed an advertisement in newspapers saying it had produced 33 of the 70 examinees who landed in the Top 10.
Tadle further said it was Gapuz that provided in-house review to the Riverside College of Nursing in Bacolod City, which landed four of its students in the Top 10.
He said Eufemia Octaviano, the chair of the Board of Nursing that prepared the questions, used to be the dean of Riverside, which got a 48-percent passing rate in the NLE.
Welcome Development
The NBI’s findings that “there was definitely a leakage” was a welcome move as the scandal threatened to deviate into a political issue, with many of the passers of the exam taking to the streets to protest an earlier order by President President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for a retake of the exam.
The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), which gives the licensure examinations, further muddled the controversy when it hastily administered the oath-taking to some of the passers in a bid to preempt a case that some nursing professors were planning to file in court.
The case filed by professors from the University of Santo Tomas, which sought to nullify the results of the June 11-12 nursing board exams, remains pending in the Court of Appeals. More than 17,000 of the 42,000-plus people who took the June exams passed.
Proponents of a “retake” for all those who took the June examinations argued that the credibility of the country’s nursing products was at stake.
Nurses have become one of the Philippines’ top exports, earning a global reputation as caregivers. But credentials for thousands of would-be nurses have been put under a cloud because of alleged cheating.
President Arroyo is expected to issue an administrative order next week on whether to order a retake of the exams.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) says 7,768 nurses went to work abroad in 2005, down from 12,822 in 2001. The top six countries that employ Filipino nurses are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, Taiwan, Ireland and the United States. (With input from Inquirer News Service & Agencies)
