MANILA, 14 October 2006 — The Court of Appeals yesterday ruled that a retake of the nursing licensure exam last June will be done on a partial basis, not nationwide, because “there was no evidence showing that there was widespread leakage.”
In a 33-page decision, the court also ordered the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) to allow 17, 322 successful examinees to take their oath as new nurses.
But it said the 1, 687 examinees who were earlier included in the list of passers under a recomputation scheme of the PRC would have to retake tests 3 and 5.
Both tests were invalidated by Resolution 31, which the commission issued last month amid reports that questions in those tests had been leaked.
It was the same resolution that allowed a recomputation of the scores, which resulted in the passing of an additional 1, 687 board takers but the removal of 1,186 names from the original list of successful examinees.
In nullifying Resolution 31, the court yesterday said the 1,186 passers who had been failed would be reinstated, while the 1,687 who were included in the list of passers after the recomputation would have to retake the exam.
The court said the evidence it had received showed no widespread leakage.
“Having found, based on unrefuted evidence, that there was no widespread leakage, and absent any preponderant evidence on who specifically benefited therefrom, a ‘retake’ will be too drastic a pill for the examinees to absorb,” the court said.
It also noted that “only the examinees that may be identified by the National Bureau of Investigation to have attended the final coaching at the R.A. Gapuz Review Center, the Pentagon Review Specialist Inc., and Inress Review Center, were to be penalized with a retaking of tests 3 and 5. The three review centers have been identified by the NBI as having been allegedly involved in the leakage.
Rene Luis Tadle from the University of Santo Tomas’ College of Nursing, the League of Concerned Nurses, and other groups had sought the invalidation of Resolution 31 while Dante Ang, the presidential adviser on migrant workers had petitioned for a retake for tests 3 and 5.
On Thursday, the NBI filed a criminal complaint before the Department of Justice against 17 executives of the three review centers.
The NBI, however, spared the examinees, saying it was “practically impossible” to determine whether any one of them had benefited from the purported leak.
Presidential Chief of Staff Michael Defensor described the ruling as “fair” to all.
“I think that’s fair. For example, in Cebu, there was no evidence (of cheating) according to the report of the National Bureau of Investigation,” Defensor said. He said the decision came just as the Department of Labor was firming up its decision on whether or not to order a retake of the exam.
Contrary Opinion
In the northern city of Baguio, the group that exposed the cheating met and tried to convince Labor Secretary Arturo Brion that the test leakage happened nationwide.
Ruth Thelma Tingda, nursing school dean of the Easter College and a governor of the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA), said the meeting yesterday was meant to introduce evidence supposedly ignored by the NBI.
The group’s lawyer also submitted yesterday the same evidence to the Department of Justice, which is conducting a preliminary investigation of the fraud case that the NBI filed against the owners and teachers of nursing review centers in Baguio City and Metro Manila. The NBI report showed that cheating occurred only in the testing centers in Baguio and Metro Manila where 18-page photocopies of test questions were circulated during the exams on June 11 and 12.
The group’s evidence included testimonies and affidavits from examinees in some provinces in Mindanao to prove that the test leakages also reached them.
Tingda on Thursday said isolating Baguio was the scenario the whistleblowers feared would happen when they decided to complain. She said the group feared the NBI report reinforced a whitewash that was meant to protect government officials involved in manipulating the examinations.
Noncommittal
While Brion listened to group, he remained silent about what he would recommend to President Arroyo, Tingda said. “Brion sealed his mouth (when we asked about) his inclinations regarding the retake issue. He assured us (that an administrative order) will be released by Monday,” Tingda said in a text message sent from Metro Manila.
But another member of the group said Brion immediately called the NBI to determine why the evidence they presented was not included in the final report to the president.
Gapuz and Pentagon, which operate Baguio branches, are included in the NBI charge list. The Baguio examinees said people wearing R.A. Gapuz jackets circulated photocopies of the test leakage that were later traced to two members of the PRC’s Board of Nursing.
The same examinees later informed the PNA about test leakage turning up among clients of Pentagon. The Baguio group included in their DOJ documents a sworn statement issued by Dennis Bautista, the Manila examinee who linked R.A. Gapuz and former PNA president George Cordero to the cheating in a Senate inquiry.
Bautista’s testimony, according to the group, intended to “disprove allegations that the leakage did not reach the Visayas and Mindanao,” by relating that the final review coaching conducted on June 10 by Ricarte Gapuz, owner of R.A. Gapuz, was broadcast simultaneously throughout the country. (With input from Inquirer News Service & Agencies)
