The fate of 17,800 nurses who took and passed the licensure examination last June hangs on a precarious balance after the Court of appeals issued on august 18, 2006 a 60-day temporary restraining order which stopped their scheduled oathtaking.
The decision of the Court of appeals came after a petition by faculty members of the University of Sto. Tomas, the League of Concerned nurses and the Binuklod na Samahan ng mga student nurse because of alleged leakage in the last licensure examination. Portions of test items were said to have been passed on to several review centers in Metro Manila. The petitioners simply wanted to protect the integrity and competence of the profession by ensuring that only those who qualified in an appropriate examination are admitted into the profession.
Philippine Nurses Association president George Cordero was pinpointed to have leaked the test questions to examinees from two review centers one of which he owns, and a nursing school which he also runs. Confronted by the scandal he resigned as association president but irreparable damage has been done. Resignation, in fact, is not at all a remedy to what he is suspected to have committed.
Indeed, dishonesty of whatever form must not be tolerated in the government system especially in the examination for professions that have responsibility over the lives of people. Those found guilty of participating in the dishonest act, from those who made available the test questions to those who knew but did not report the anomaly are actually accessories because had they reported the malfeasance the scandal could have been averted. They could have been paid to shut up.
Certainly, not all of the 17, 800 who passed out of 40, 000 examinees benefited from the leaked test questions. Others may not have known at all that there was such irregularity going on until it was revealed in the media. This is an indisputable reality that must be carefully looked into before a final verdict is made on the fate of the examinees.
However, it will take a long tedious process to separate the chaff from the grain, to determine who were innocent and who were not. The recommended option to have the examinees take a new test may not even be proper at all. For those who did not cheat it would be grossly unfair. For those who did they do not deserve that second chance. Not too soon, perhaps.
Meantime, let the person primarily responsible answer for his indiscretion that has tainted the reputation even of Filipino nurses who have been in the profession long ago. It is time, indeed, that Congress should pass harsher laws to discourage cheating in government examinations.
But the legislative mill grinds very slowly because most senators are preoccupied with endless investigations which are no more than venues for grandstanding.
