‘Visa hold the worst we expected’ -- nursing group

By Nikko Dizon
Inquirer
Last updated 10:31pm (Mla time) 02/16/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- It was the worst case scenario they had wanted to avoid.

"That was our point from the start. That's what we were worried about. That's what we wanted to prevent," Pia Bersamin-Embuscado, lawyer of the University of Sto. Tomas Faculty of Nursing Association said on Friday.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer sought Bersamin-Embuscado's comment following the recent decision of the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) to deny last year's passers of the VisaScreen Certificates.

But now, there was nothing that could be done anymore except to abide by the CGFNS decision, the lawyer said.

"It took an international body to tell us that there was something wrong with the exam," she added.

Bersamin-Embuscado expressed hope that with the future of so many Filipino nurses at stake, the Supreme Court would give them another chance.

Ironically, she noted, the high court's decision to deny the UST Faculty Association's motion for reconsideration to allow the board passers to re-take portions of the exam came a day before the CGFNS announced its own decision.

Bersamin-Embuscado said she received several feedbacks that employers had been accepting the applications of several June 2006 passers.

But they remain just that -- applications.

"No one is hiring them," she said.

Leonor Rosero, Philippine Regulatory Commission (PRC) chair, declined to comment on the CGFNS decision until after she had met with the Board of Nursing and the PRC's legal department.

"We will study what we'll do about it," she said in a phone interview.

Rosero said they were having an initial meeting on Saturday, to be followed by another meeting on Monday.