One holy mess

The government is not only back where it started in the matter of take or no-retake of the nursing licensure exams, as we stated in our last column, it has unfairly and cruelly caused utter confusion among the candidates, especially the legitimate passers.

If you think the Court of Appeals decision of Friday the 13th October resolved all pending issues, you are dead wrong. On the contrary, it resolved nothing. It even deepened the mystery as to the credibility and integrity of those examinations.

As far as the examinees are concerned this is how things stand: Those passers who are not among the 1,687 examinees "whose names were merely added to the unaltered list of 41.24% of successful examinees" and who were ordered by the C.A. to retake Tests 3 and 5 of the exams, may still NOT take their oath and be issued licenses. This is the result of Department of Labor and Employment Secretary Art Brion’s order to the Professional Regulation Commission not to administer such oaths on the ground that the CA decision is not yet final and executory.

This order was announced to the ostensible passers at the worse possible time, when hundreds of bright-eyed and relieved would-be new nurses were gathered at the PRC Auditorium in Manila after an announcement by the PRC that the oath-taking of successful examinees would continue, per the CA resolution.

PRC chair Leonor Tripon-Rosero, who had earlier marched through the center aisle to the stage to the thunderous applause of all those gathered, had to announce that the oath-taking would have to be called off. One can only imagine the sinking feeling of those frustrated oath-takers.

It’s a real wonder Rosero was able to exit the hall in one piece. She had to run a gauntlet of weeping and infuriated candidates who, I’m sure, would have wanted nothing better than to tear her apart, limb from limb, IF it was clear to them she was solely responsible for the fiasco. But things are not that simple. Such things rarely are.

As it happens, Brion was legally correct in ordering a halt to the oath-taking. The Friday the 13th CA decision is indeed not yet final. In fact, a motion for reconsideration has been filed by a party to the case, the UST College of Nursing Faculty Association.

If, as expected, the CA dismisses that MR, the case may go up to the Supreme Court. In other words, all those oaths already administered could still be invalidated.

This would be apart from other oaths which could also be voided under the CA decision itself which said that the court’s "disquisition" was "without prejudice to respondents’ [the PRC and Board of Nursing] and the executive branch’s revoking the licenses issued to examinees who may eventually be identified as among those who attended the final coaching sessions at Gapuz, Inress and Pentagon review centers."

The aforesaid review centers were identified by the National Bureau of Investigation as the sources of the leaked questions in Tests 3 and 5. The three are now facing criminal charges filed by the NBI.

Probably as a result of their utter frustration, and to complicate the situation even further, the successful examinees who claim they were not benefited by any leaks are now saying they will also get together and file damage suits against . . . against whom it is not very clear, but as a general proposition I guess it would be against any persons, government agencies and private associations that allegedly caused their anguish.

It will be interesting to see who they identify as their tormentors. I do not in any way mean to belittle their pain and suffering. Nor do I want to throw cold water on their quest for someone to nail to the wall. Frankly, though, I think they’ve got two chances in these contemplated damage suits: slim and none.

Secretary Brion, a bar topnotcher and former Justice of the Court of Appeals, while also correctly noting that the DOLE was not a party to the CA case, has written the Court – I believe it’s a letter, not a formal petition in intervention – suggesting that the Court allow efforts at "conciliation" between the "stakeholders."

Now there is a legal principle that a compromise or amicable settlement is always possible at any stage of a litigation, even when the courts involved have already rendered decisions. But in this case, the suggestion may have come too late, and it seems unlikely that the "stakeholders" will give up on what they regard as very basic principles.

For example, one group of stakeholders is adamant that the 2006 nursing exams have been irrevocably "tainted" and have put in doubt the very integrity and credibility of the examination process itself, since it is so "infected" with corrupt review centers and nursing board examiners. This group feels the CA Friday the 13th decision never really "resolved" the question of "taint." In their view, the appellate court ducked the issue and merely admitted that it didn’t have the evidence to decide one way or the other.

Another group swears that no such taint pervades the 2006 exam, that the leakage was sufficiently addressed by the court-voided "recomputation" and that, in any event, that leakage was not widespread, as even the CA acknowledged.

One stakeholder argues that the entire result of the 2006 exam should be invalidated and that a wholesale retake of the exam ordered. The other insists there should be no retake, and that the problem has been solved. This latter group also denies that the reputation of the Filipino nurse abroad has been tarnished in any way.

Of course, another, arguably the most important, stakeholder is the examinees themselves. This group of stakeholders consists of several segments: those who verifiably passed without cheating, those who passed by cheating, those who flunked with or without cheating, those who initially flunked but then passed solely by virtue of the recomputation ordered by the PRC, those who initially passed and then flunked after the recomputation (and who should be "restored" to the passing list, the CA ruled).

The problem is identifying who belongs to what category in this group of stakeholders. Those who passed, with or without the leaked questions, don’t want a retake. Those who flunked want another chance.

With all these stakeholders, I really don’t know what sort of "conciliation" Sec. Brion thinks is still possible. Rather than more talk, I think what the situation demands is resolute action by someone who can credibly and plausibly say that that will be the last word on the matter. In a sense, it’s unfair to stick the courts with this essentially administrative matter which is within the purview of the executive branch.

Someone should end the agony of the examinees once and for all. Decide, for heaven’s sake, and damn the torpedoes!