MY TAKE: LEAKAGE IN THE NURSING BOARD EXAMS

My first recollection of leakages came from my frosh year in high school. I remember having heard a report that one of our batchmates got in (I guess broke into) the mimeographing room and took copies of our periodical tests. I just am not sure if the girl spread the test questions around, but what I do remember is she was sanctioned for that. Another memory also came from high school, but now in my sophie year. A class which took a subject in an earlier period had a long test. A girl from that class told a friend who will be taking the same subject in a later period, some items she remembered while she was taking the test. The friend looked the answers up, told a couple of classmates, and was caught and apprehended a few days later.

As I look back at these juvenile acts of dishonesty, I must admit, they sound a bit funny. Amusing even. Everyone knows how things are in high school. Teenage girl drama. The occasional truancy. An inappropriate relationship. And a bit of cheating, whichever form it may take. I know and I’m telling because there should be no hypocrites in this blog. Those girls who cheated back then and all the others who I knew did similar things, I don’t know where they are now or what they’re up to. My guess is they’re somewhere in the north hemisphere, with their hotshot boyfriends, working regular eight-to-five jobs, and living their own sex-in-the-city-ish, episodes. I said that because I also know that they got away with cheating and having committed a potentially life-damaging teen student crime didn’t actually ruin their future. What they did was fine with me then and it still is now. No biggie.

Cheating in a licensure exam, however, is a whole other garbage pile. It’s bigger, damper, hotter, and stinkier. Something which will make you cringe, gag, and puke.

In the know
I have read the newspaper articles and watched the TV news reports and this is what I know. The nursing board licensure examinations were administered last June 11 and 12. One test from each of the two days of examinations looked and felt really familiar to many takers. Apparently, a couple of days before the exams, a nursing board exam review center called INRESS Review Center conducted a “final coaching”, as one article had put it, at an SM Manila cinema. During this “final class”, there was a Powerpoint presentation of different situations and test questions with the corresponding suggested answers. No hand-outs were provided so the students had to write down all they could possibly copy. Inress is owned by no other than Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) president George Cordero, who has since stepped down from his post as president after being suspected because of the most obvious reasons. A student who attended the class at SM and made copies of her notes during that class, forwarded the materials to another review center called R.A. Gapuz. This review center, knowing no better but presumed innocent, distributed the materials to its reviewees. And now, two months later, no one has been apprehended. The investigation is still ongoing. The board passers have already taken their oaths. But the truth remains beneath someone’s ass, the particular ass still unknown to the public: that the whole thing was a hoax, tainted, and smeared with kadayaan.

Ass, er, Man of the hour
George Cordero. Ahh…what a personality. Some heard him say that he didn’t shell out P7 million for nothing. Other speculate that he bribed both the PRC and BON on separate occasions. “It was a clear case of conflict of interest. George Cordero was the president of the PNA, which nominates members of the Board of Nursing (BON), the group that prepares the questions for the nursing board examinations.” (PDI) Oh yeah, he also was the president and owner of PCHS, a college that offers nursing, and Inress, a review center for the nursing boards, both of which, as we all know, are institutions that bank on the number of board topnotchers and passers they produce. Did I mention that this Cordero fella’s son also was an examinee last June? Well, the boy was. Conflict of interest, you say? DUH.

Where there’s smoke, there’s no fire
Apart from Cordero’s very apparent conflict of interest shit, there are a few other things which, to my surprise, came by everybody without anyone noticing the malice in any of it.
1. “Final coaching” at SM cinema. A pre-week review class, I’ve heard of. But at a mall cinema? Wait, that calls for multiple--??? I guess it has, since then, truly turned into one blockbuster hit.
2. Hand-written materials. I don’t know with everyone else, but when I get a hold of something that looks as unofficial as that, I’d readily realize that shit like that will always hit the fan.

3. Basta or the response given by the review masters during the “final coaching” when the reviewees doubted the suggested answers shown in the presentation. If I were the one who sat there, I’d be scared to death that I wasted my time and money for a damn review class only that only spoke of memorizing key words in tests rather that critical thinking and analysis.

It’s more like when someone farts and others smell it. After the stench disturbs their nasal activity, they speculate of who the perpetuator is, gossip a bit, act nonchalantly, and never tell another soul. Embarrassed of other people knowing that someone has a gas problem or simply that they were farted at. There were all these tell-tale signs, but still, the tainted events unfolded and took a month to completely blow up in everybody’s faces.

Two-faced heroes
You see, it’s as simple as this, I’m sure. These examinees knew that the materials being given to them were sophisticated cheat sheets. Only an idiot, and perhaps a liar, would insist that they thought those were regular test pointers. They chose to ignore it then and proceeded to take the exam with the unfair advantage to boot. But now that all hell has broken loose, “brave souls” have suddenly risen to the challenge claiming that they did know of the materials and were in fact victimized by all that has happened. Take this Pamela Ortega as an example, the girl who passed the copied notes from the “final coaching” session to the RA Gapuz review center. She “voluntarily came out in the open in the midst of this leakage news because her conscience was bothering her and she wanted to tell the truth…[members of the BON] thanked Pamela for her good act and for the information.” Sure, the info is useful now. Just imagine if she came out with it earlier. Way earlier. If I were BON, I won’t be thanking her at all. Grabe naman, nagamit mo nang lahat yung materials at pumasa ka na din, nung biglang nagkakontrobersiya, ikaw pa ang gusto magpakabayani? Tigilan mo nga ako.

True victims
Of course, not all examinees are guilty. There are surely those who intently burnt their eyebrows and took the test with a clean conscience and no unfair advantage. They are the ones who truly deserve everyone’s, “Ay, kawawa naman” comments. They deserve not just that, but also their license, others’ respect, and the apologies of all of those who did cheat.

Sad and painful truth
However there may be innocent souls dragged in this mess, the fact remains that no one can accurately prove whether or not an examinee is guilty. In the eyes of everyone else who have stood by this issue, these June passers are questionable as a whole. Though it is wrong to generalize, we have been left with no other option. The Court of Appeals is now urging the invalidation of the oaths that have been taken by the June passers. (These PRC half-wits…they proceeded with the oath-taking ceremonies even when it has been utterly obvious that doing so will make matters worse and more complicated.)

Everyone is being given three options:
1. A retake of the whole exam
2. A retake of just the 2 tests that were in question
3. An invalidation of the 2 tests and a recomputation of grades excluding the results from these 2 tests

Based on experience, a retake is unimaginable. After finding out that I passed my board exams, I remember feeling completely free. It was almost like knowing the exact moment my brain diffused and got rid of the excess information it was storing for four years. It felt great. If someone had told me that a retake was to be enforced, I would’ve strangled the bearer of that bad news.

The cancellation of the two tests is also disappointing. What if these were the strong subjects of some examinees? If these were invalidated, their rate would rely on their weaker subjects. Some who originally passed could fail. And some who originally failed could suddenly pass.

It’s a lose-lose situation, really. So what can we do about it? Nothing. The foul has been committed. All we can do now is wait and see how the rest of this trash is dumped. What we can do is absorb the things we have learned from this mishap and not allow something like it make a rerun in the future. The existence and fate of future bad-ass Cordero’s, two-faced heroes, and true victims have become our responsibility. If this part of history repeats itself, we should demote ourselves to a fourth-world country. We might look progressive, but our mentality is still degenerative. Bulok, kumbaga.