Timeline

Inquirer
Last updated 01:12am (Mla time) 09/29/2006

Published on Page A4 of the September 29, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

JUNE 11-12, 2006 -- The nursing board examination is conducted nationwide.

June 20 -- The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) denies that test questions were leaked following rumors and a TV news report showing an examinee, her face hidden from the camera, claiming that a review center in Baguio City gave out questions.

July 15 -- The Inquirer reports that the PRC has admitted to the leak and has traced it to two members of the Board of Nursing, Anesia Dionisio and Virginia Madeja. The PRC refers the matter to the National Bureau of Investigation.

July 18 -- Ray Gapuz admits at a press conference that his R.A. Gapuz Nursing Review Center gave its students a document containing test topics the day before the board exam was conducted. He says he did not know that the 18-page manuscript, which he says he received by fax on June 10, was a leak.

July 19 -- The exam results are released. Gringo de Guzman San Diego of the University of Pangasinan emerges No. 1 with a rating of 83.2 percent, besting 17,870 other successful examinees.

July 21 -- The University of Santo Tomas College of Nursing calls on the PRC to postpone the oath-taking of the new nurses until the controversy is resolved. (The PRC set the mass oath-taking on Aug. 22.)

July 27 -- The PRC says there is no stopping the mass oath-taking.

July 29 -- The Inquirer reports that the PRC has decided to postpone the oath-taking while it deals with the controversy. A meeting of nursing deans is set on Aug. 15.

Aug. 16 -- The PRC says a retake of the nursing board exam is optional for those who passed it.

Aug. 17 -- The PRC announces that successful examinees may go to any PRC office in their respective areas and take their oath.

Aug. 18 -- The Court of Appeals issues a temporary restraining order putting off the planned Aug. 22 mass oath-taking for at least 60 days.

Aug. 26 -- The Inquirer reports that Dante Ang, head of the Presidential Task Force on National Licensure Examinations that Malacañang formed to look into the leak, has petitioned the appellate court to invalidate the exam results and order a retake of the tests on two subjects.

“Nothing short of the invalidation and the retaking of the two leaked subjects can repair the damage done to the reputation and integrity of the nursing exam,” Ang says, adding:

“The results of the examination are tainted with fraud and cannot be valid basis for determining who passed and did not pass ... and for administering the oath of those who supposedly passed.”

Aug. 28 -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo says it is up to the PRC chair, Dr. Leonor Tripon-Rosero, to find a solution to the controversy. “The guilty should be punished and the not guilty should not be punished,” Ms Arroyo says.

Aug. 29 -- Malacañang appeals to hospitals to consider hiring the June exam passers.

“We believe that those who passed this board exam fairly should not suffer from the dishonest acts of an erring few,” says Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye.

Aug. 30 -- Rosero tells the House committees on civil service and on good government that the PRC has released the recomputed exam results, adding 499 to the list of passers.

The PRC maintains its “no retake” stance and nullifies 90 of the 100 questions under Test V.

Sept. 26 -- Ms Arroyo orders retake of the board exam but leaves it to Labor Secretary Arturo Brion and the PRC to thresh out the details. Inquirer Research