NBI: Cheating only in Baguio, Manila; 17 review center execs face raps

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) reported yesterday that the leakage in the nursing board examination scandal last June was limited only to Baguio City and Manila and that 17 officials of at least three review centers would be charged for their alleged involvement.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said President Arroyo and the Cabinet have agreed to let the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) decide whether to order two of the five-part examination retaken based on the NBI’s findings.

The bureau was ordered to speed up the investigation even though it earlier said it would need until Oct. 15 to finish the job, Ermita said.

NBI Director Nestor Mantaring told a Malacañang press briefing that they have completed the investigation and would press charges against 17 officials of three review centers before the Department of Justice for violating Republic Act No. 8981, the law that modernized the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).

The officials face six to 12 years in prison if found guilty, he said.

"We have conducted the investigation nationwide. We found evidence to support our findings that the leakage was in the areas of Baguio and Manila. In the other areas, although there were rumors that there was also leakage, we found no evidence to support that allegation," Mantaring told reporters.

He refused to reveal the identities of the 17 officials because charges have yet to be filed.

Mantaring said the NBI would also pursue the charges against the two former members of board of nursing examiners believed to have leaked the test questions. The Office of the Ombudsman is conducting the investigation.

Anesia Dionisio and Virginia Madeja were earlier identified by the PRC and the NBI as the most likely sources of the leakage.

Mantaring said a list of examinees who enrolled in the three nursing review centers was included in the NBI report and will be submitted to the DOLE for review.

"So this list will be matched to determine whether they should be included in the retake," Ermita said.

Mantaring said the NBI could not immediately pinpoint who benefited from the leakage because some students who got hold of them possibly did not use them while some of those who did still failed to pass the licensure examination.

"Our recommendation is focused on prosecution of those found involved in the leakage," Mantaring said. "We don’t have yet the figures (of those who cheated), they are still completing the list of those who registered in one of the review centers."

Mantaring said they interviewed about 20 witnesses, including those who photocopied the manuscripts and others involved in the reproduction of the leakage.

"I am confident it (investigation) will warrant conviction. Some of the manuscripts were photocopied and the places where the copying was done was testified to by people who reproduced the manuscripts. We have testimonies of the operators of duplicating machines."

Only questions from tests III and V of the five-part licensure examinations were found to be have been leaked, he said.

The Court of Appeals is still deliberating on a petition that stopped the PRC in August from swearing in the successful examinees as new nurses and sought a retake of the two leaked tests.

But Ermita said the DOLE will act ahead of the court and resolve the scandal. An administrative order would be drafted by the DOLE and submitted to Malacañang for its consideration.

A final decision whether there will be a retake or not may come out by Monday through an AO to be issued by Mrs. Arroyo.

"We discussed this in the Cabinet, we shall come out with an executive action before or after (the CA decision). We decided to come out before because it is difficult if the executive branch would be looked upon as indecisive," Ermita told reporters.

"It’s bad enough that we are talking about flip-flopping and now it’s indecision, right? The final decision of the retake and when, how and who should take and what extent, we will await the position or recommendation of secretary of labor under whose department the Professional Regulatory Commission was placed under Executive Order 565 as amended," Ermita said, referring to Mrs. Arroyo’s earlier decision to order the two tests retaken following mounting criticism over her indecision, only to take it back and wait for Labor Secretary Arturo Brion’s recommendation.

Brion refused to comment on the new developments. "Let me study it first. My promise is I will take a fresh look," he told reporters.

The NBI’s findings will help Brion make a recommendation and that Malacañang would wait and see how its decision will affect the petition with the Court of Appeals, Ermita said.

However, PRC Chairwoman Leonor Rosero has resolutely stood by her decision against holding new tests, saying scores from the leaked tests were not included in computing the overall scores.

It would also be unfair to those who did not cheat, she said.

Rosero vented her ire on Brion and Commission on Filipinos Overseas chairman Dante Ang when she appeared before senators on Tuesday, describing them as "intruders" for calling for new examinations. — With Christina Mendez, Jess Diaz