PRC exec in 2006 Nursing Board Exam leak convicted of graft

A former member of the Nursing Board of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) accused of leaking questionnaires for the June 2006 Nursing Licensure Examination has been convicted by an anti-graft court.

Anesia Buenafe Dionisio has been sentenced to six years imprisonment with perpetual disqualification from holding any public office for being negligent in her custody of the test materials, according to a decision promulgated by the Sandiganbayan Fourth Division last Nov. 14.

The court faulted Dionisio for allowing one Evelyn O. Asinas, a PRC employee, to encode and print hard copies of the questions for her.

Dionisio, however, was acquitted on a separate case of Violation of Republic Act  No. 8981 (PRC Modernization Act of 2000) concerning allegations that she secretly disclosed licensure exam questions to unauthorized persons.

“(T)here is no sufficient evidence to connect the accused with moral certainty to the alleged leakage notes that supposedly circulated prior to the June 2006 NLE; hence, it cannot be said that the accused disclosed or revealed or divulged or made known her test questions for her assigned subject in the NLE prior to the conduct thereof,” the Sandiganbayan said in its 70-page decision.

In convicting Dionisio for negligence, the Sandiganbayan dismissed her protestation that she has been involved in the Nursing Board examinations since 1991 but had never been implicated in any irregularity until the 2006 controversy.
 
During trial, the accused explained that she had to engage the help of Asinas because she did not know how to use a computer. She also  claimed that at the time of the preparation of the questionnaire, she was still recovering from meningitis that placed her in coma for four days and adversely affected her memory.

But the Sandiganbayan said Dionisio should have been more mindful of her sworn duty under the “security declaration” required from all members of PRC’s professional regulatory boards that they are personally responsible for “preserving the confidentiality of all classified information.”
 
Associate Justice and 4th Division chairman Gregory S. Ong penned the verdict, with Associate Justices Jose R. Hernandez and Maria Cristina J. Cordero concurring. — KBK, GMA News