DOJ recommends charges vs review center head in nursing exams leakage

The Department of Justice recommended on Tuesday the filing of criminal charges against the president of the review center in connection with the leakage of test questions during the June 2006 nursing licensure examinations. Set to face charges of violation of Section 15 of the Republic Act 8981 (Professional Regulation Commission Modernization) before the Manila Regional Trial Court is George Cordero, president of Inress Review Center. However, charges on Cordero's co-respondents - Jonna Bucud, Ricardo Gapuz Jr, and Elena Gapuz-Altajeros, operators of Gapuz Review Center - were dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence. In a ten-page resolution, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez found probable cause in the complaint filed by the National Bureau of Investigation, which originally found the 19 officers and operators of Inress, Gapuz, and Pentagon nursing review centers all criminally liable. The resolution modified an earlier finding of a panel of DOJ prosecutors that indicted all four operators of Gapuz and Inress review centers on the basis of manuscripts, compact discs, and power point presentations of the leak questions and their answers, as well as sworn statements and affidavits of witnesses who are mostly students, reviewees, lecturers and xerox copiers. The DOJ pointed out that records would readily show that the alleged leakage questions were discovered as coming from Inress, but no evidence showing that the leaked materials came from the Gapuz and Pentagon review. In the case of Cordero, the DOJ gave merit on the testimony of witness-reviewee Dennis Alba Bautista, who claimed that he was among those present during a final coaching class at the SM Manila two days before the June 11 and 12, 2006 examinations. Bautista also presented as evidence a compact disc which the reviewers listened to during the coaching class, wherein he found that 25 and 90 items in the contested Tests III (Medical-Surgical) and V (Psychiatric Nursing), respectively, were identical to the lectures of Inress. The witness further said that Cordero seemed to know of the leakage questions beforehand as he made an announcement of tuition refund for those who would top the examination. "Such confidence of respondent clearly implies that all questions Inress Review will discuss shall be asked in the examination. Corollary thereto, respondent's review center even distributed CDs to their reviewees to concentrate on the questions encrypted therein," Gonzalez said. On the other hand, Gonzalez affirmed the dismissal of charges against Bucud, as well as Gapuz and Altajeros, pointing out that the indictment of the Gapuz officials were merely for "secretly informing or making known the examination questions prior to the day of the examination" and not for rigging the forthcoming NLEX. Only 17,821 of the 42, 600 students who took the nursing licensure examinations on June 11 and 12, 2006 passed the tests. The leakage prompted the nursing board to order a retake of the exams. The recommendation to try the owners and operators of the review center came out a day after some 4,000 Filipino nurses started taking up the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) until December. The case stemmed from the complaint filed by PRC chair Leonor Rosero before the NBI, which on October 12, 2006 recommended the prosecution of the respondents. - GMANews.TV