And now for this piece of news...

Davao reviewer says nursing board cheating was nationwide

A NURSING board reviewer from Davao City on Saturday corroborated reports that cheating in the June 2006 nursing licensure examination (NLE) was nationwide.

Daryl Joel "Butch'' Dumdum, a registered nurse and former nursing professor, said he got information that NLE test questions were also leaked in the cities of Davao and Tacloban.

Dumdum, who said he is now a reviewer for a review center after quitting a teaching job at the Davao Doctors College, said a certain review center which has branches in Davao City and other parts of the country offered tests questions to a dean in a Davao City nursing school a day before the June 11 and 12 NLE.

“The dean who is also teaching the subject (of the leaked questions) was offered a leakage by a review center. She refused to take it,'' Dumdum told the Inquirer by phone.

Dumdum said one of his students relayed the information to him just a week ago. He said the same review center, which he did not yet want to identify, could have also given the questions to its examinees in other areas.

Dumdum said he learned of another leakage in Tacloban.

“I called an ally from Tacloban and he said there was also a leakage there,'' Dumdum said.

Dumdum said he was convinced that the leakage of the NLE questions reached not only Manila, Baguio and Davao but also other parts of Mindanao and the Visayas as pointed out by Rene Luis Tadle, president of the faculty association of the University of Sto. Tomas College of Nursing.

“The leakage is everywhere. It's simple logic because the review centers in Luzon have branches in the Visayas and Mindanao,'' Dumdum said, adding he was willing to help investigators.

"I will disclose the information I have (to the NBI),'' Dumdum said.

Dumdum said he came forward to support efforts to restore the integrity of the nursing profession.

“And the only way to do that is to have a retaking of the entire examination. The far-reaching effect of a no-retake is unemployment and shame to the country,'' he said. (Emphasis mine)

“How can we claim now that we can produce globally competitive nurses, which we had before, if this issue is not resolved in a justifiable manner? I hope Malacañang would listen to this. Let not our sense of hopelessness, despair and vested interests cloud our duty to those people whom we have sworn to serve,'' he added.

I agree with him. There's no question that a retake, especially for those who had completely nothing to do with the leakage, is truly unjust. But what can they do about it? What can anyone do about it? The best that the authorities can do is to go after all those who are responsible for this whole mess (go after as many of the guilty parties as possible) and make them accountable for their crime. But that won't change the fact that the NLE was tainted. There's no telling how wide the leakage really was, because as was pointed out, the different review centers alluded to have branches nationwide. So a retake, no matter how painful the preparations will surely be for the retakers, is the only measure that can restore some integrity to the profession. It's truly, truly unfortunate that the examinees are victims twice over...