Appealing to CGFNS ‘useless,’ says Gordon

By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 06:02pm (Mla time) 02/20/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- The government's plan to appeal the decision of the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) requiring nurses who passed the June 2006 board examination to retake two leak-tainted tests if they want to acquire US visas is useless, Senator Richard Gordon said Tuesday.

Gordon, whose Senate resolution was the basis of the inquiry into the leakage in the June 2006 board, said the CGFNS is not going to consider the personal appeal of Professional Regulation Commission chair Leonor Tripon-Rosero.

Rosero is set to leave for the United States to ask the CGFNS to reconsider its decision not to give VisaScreen certificates to the 17,000 or so nurses who passed the June exam unless they retake tests 3 and 5, the questions to which had been leaked ahead of the exam.

“I hate to rain on their parade but [the CGFNS] is not going to do that [reverse its decision]. I feel for their [nurses’] parents. They [PRC] are giving false hopes to the passers and their parents,” he said.

Gordon said the solution to the problem of credibility -- the retaking of the exam in areas where the leak was proven to have happened.-- had been proposed long before,

“I don't like to say ,‘I told you so.’ Now every one of the 17,000 must retake the exam because the taint is still there,” he said.

“As a former salesman for the country, we should solve the problem so that our problem with credibility is solved along with it,” Gordon, who once served as tourism secretary, said.

Rene Tadle of the University of Sto. Tomas' College of Nursing Faculty, who spearheaded the filing of a court case seeking a retake of the June licensure exam, agreed with Gordon.

Instead of appealing the CGFNS decision, he asked the PRC to work for the retake.

“We should now channel all our efforts so that the retake may be given at the soonest possible time, with governmental intervention as far as fees and review [are] concerned. But of course, it's the PRC's call,” Tadle said.