Brion hopes retake issue over soon

By William B. Depasupil, Reporter
Manila Times

WITH the nursing exam case still in the Court of Appeals, Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said Wednesday that all he wished for is the speedy resolution of the controversy.

“I hope that there will be a closure for the sake of the examinees, for the sake of the system and for the sake of our national integrity. That’s all I want,” Brion told editors and reporters of The Manila Times at a roundtable.

He stressed, though, that everything now hangs in the air until the petitions filed before by the appellate court by groups questioning the court’s order are resolved with finality.

Till then, Brion said, the damage to the integrity of the nursing licensure examination would remain and doubts about the efficiency and capability of the examinees concerned would prevent them from moving on.

He has written the court to express his fear and his hope that the controversy will be settled soon.

News of the leakage has spread in the United States and England, where Filipino nurses are highly regarded for their efficiency, Brion said.

The US is now thinking twice before it pursues its plan of setting up an examination center in the Philippines for nurses aspiring to work in America, he said.

Even the president of the Philippine nurses’ association in the United Kingdom is disturbed by the controversy, Brion said.

“For all you know, [the UK government] might impose additional requirements on new entrants,” he said.

He noted that many countries are competing with the Philippines in supplying nurses to Western countries, and if the test-leakage controversy is not dealt with accordingly, Filipino nurses might lose out.

The Court of Appeals has ordered that 1,687 of the June 2006 nursing board examinees who benefited from the recomputation of the grades must take Tests 3 and 5 again.

The court also ordered the Professional Regulation Commission to include in the retake the 1,186 examinees who were removed from the list of board passers after the grades were recomputed.

The court said board passers on the original PRC list can take their oaths and get their nursing licenses.

“The Department of Labor and Employment will wait for the Court of Appeals to decide on the validity of the retake issue, and it will implement the court’s recommendation,” Brion said.

The labor department took control of the PRC on September 11 through a presidential directive, Executive Order 565.

The National Bureau of Investigation has recommended charges against two nursing board examiners and 17 officials of three review centers who were involved in the leakage.

With Katrice R. Jalbuena