Fatima U graduate tops June ‘07 nursing exams

A nursing graduate of Our Lady of Fatima University topped the 2007 Nursing Licensure Examinations (NLE), the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) said Sunday. PRC head Leonor Rosero said the passing rate for first-time takers, repeaters, and voluntary examinees is 48.18 percent or a total of 31,275 of the 64,909. She said the complete list of the passers will be published Monday in major newspapers. According to Rosero, Fatima’s Darlene Chutuape scored the highest with 88 percent. In second place is Romeo Pangilinan (87.8%) from De Ocampo Memorial College of Nursing. Pierre Florendo from Mount View College and Mona Lisa Pua from the Chinese General Hospital School of Nursing are tied in third place (87.2%). In 2006, the nursing exams were marred by allegations that answers to some of the test questions were leaked by some review centers. On June 1, 2007, Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez ordered filing of criminal charges against two members of the Board of Nursing for last year’s nursing examination leakage. In a 12-page order, Gutierrez ordered BON members Virginia Madeja and Anesia Dionisio haled before the Sandiganbayan for the leakage that triggered a scandal. Gutierrez, in issuing the order, denied the two BON members’ motion for reconsideration. Madeja was the assigned examiner in Medical Surgery Nursing, and Dionisio the assigned examiner in Psychiatric Nursing in last year’s nursing exam. An Ombudsman fact-finding panel headed by Overall Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro, had recommended the filing of charges against Madeja and Dionisio for violating the Professional Regulation Commission law and the anti-graft act. Gutierrez rebuffed the claim of the two that the evidence against them was weak, saying circumstantial evidence is sufficient if they can combine to form “conviction beyond reasonable doubt." Besides, Gutierrez said Madeja’s motion for reconsideration was filed only on March 13, 2007, a day after the five-day period allowed by the Ombudsman’s rules of procedure. As for Madeja’s position that charging her with two offenses with common elements constitutes double jeopardy, Gutierrez said that what is prohibited is the indictment for the same offense after his conviction or acquittal. “Hence, without an acquittal or conviction for the same act, the rule on double jeopardy will not apply," she said. The case against Madeja and Dionisio stemmed from a complaint filed before the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) by the PRC on the leakage that marred the June 11 and 12 exams. Records of the case show that a few days after the NLE, several nursing personalities complained about an alleged leakage incident in Baguio City. They said certain reviewees identified through their jackets as being from RA Gapuz Review Center finished the examination much more quickly. Investigation by the PRC Investigating Committee showed that “a total of 56 situations contained in respondent Madeja’s manuscript, identified as keywords, appeared in the handwritten leakage notes distributed to the reviewees of RA Gapuz Review Center in Baguio City and other parts of the country and five situations therein...with a total of 25 questions actually came out in the NLE in the subject Medical Surgery Nursing Test." Also, the investigating committee said “majority of respondent Dionisio’s test questions both handwritten and in computer printed notes were shown to have reached the reviewees of RA Gapuz Review Center and Institute for Review and Special Studies, Manila, and in other parts of the country." The committee also said 90 questions from Dionisio’s test were among the 100 examination questions asked in the NLE in Psychiatric Nursing. The Ombudsman panel is still conducting a fact-finding investigation on the possible involvement of other persons to the leakage incident. - GMANews.TV