A big slap in the face

The Philippine delegation that went to the United States to try and plead with the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools to reconsider its ban of Filipino nurses who took the tainted June 2006 board exams got what it deserved, a big slap on the face.

Even before the delegation left the Philippines, the CGFNS already warned everybody who cared to read its lips that its decision was final. But the team left anyway, against the advice of many well-meaning Filipinos, on its Quixotic mission.

True enough, the CGFNS did not budge. Worse, it used stinging words in driving home the point. " We hope that is the message the delegation will take back to the Philippines - that the time for challenges and delegations is past, " the CGFNS told the Filipinos. Ouch.

" The decision was based on US law and what US law required of CGFNS in the circumstances of the June 2006 examination. The key question was not what Philippine authorities did, but what US authorities would have done in similar circumstances, " the CGFNS added.

It was very clear that the Philippine delegation sought to bend a legal matter with an emotional appeal, which never works in such cases. Legal issues need legal measures to be rectified, and that is something the delegation just did not have the capacity to do.

It is just the same with the case of US Marine Daniel Smith, whose transfer to US custody pending his appeal against a Philippine lower court decision convicting him of rape we noisily tried to fight with raw emotion.

The US has its laws and we have ours. Even if both our laws are similar, there is never any cross-application of such laws, the sovereignty of nations and their laws being sacred and inviolable.

We may lobby with or court the sympathy of US lawmakers to amend some laws. But that was obviously not what the Philippine delegation sought to do in the CGFNS case, nor what Filipino demonstrators were screaming about in the Smith case.

In the CGFNS case, we wanted the Americans to gloss over their laws, like we do so often here. " Sige na mga mare at baka naman pwedeng makisingit, kahit ngayon lang po. " If the Americans could understand Tagalog, that's probably what we wanted so much to tell them.

In the case of Daniel Smith, we wanted to scrap the law altogether just because we did not like its application in a single case. We are always so fickle. We love to change horses in mid-stream. We can never make up our minds.

There may be things that we find particularly harsh, even unfair. But these are things that are outside our sphere of influence. They are beyond our capacity to control. We must never let our emotions get the better of us.

Let us not have another Flor Contemplacion spectacle where we went to the extent of burning the flag of Singapore just because that country executed a Filipino maid in accordance with its laws.

If we do not want to comply with CGFNS rules, then let us not go to America. If we do not like the Visiting Forces Agreement, then let us scrap it. If Singaporean law is too harsh, avoid that city-state. But never ever assail others for what they are because that is what they are.

Call the CGFNS ruling unfair. But at the end of the day, it is only looking after its own interests. As to us back here in the Philippines, the fact remains that leakage tainted the exam. Yet those responsible have not even been punished. So who do you think we are kidding?