EDITORIAL — Fresh scandal a-brewing

The Civil Service Commission has reportedly rejected the appointments of some 600 new teachers on learning that some of them submitted fake documents, including the all-important licenses.

The disclosure by the regional office of the CSC about the inclusion of supposedly fake licenses among fake documents submitted by teacher-applicants comes as a big jolt in the wake of the leakage scandal that tainted the results of the June 2006 nursing board exams.

To be sure, the Philippines does not rate very highly in the latest corruption index, ranking somewhere like 10th among about 200 countries in the world. But to begin seeing actual evidences of the extent to which corruption has permeated Filipino society is sickening.

What is even more worrying is that the teaching profession is also emerging as one of the potential growth areas for overseas employment of Filipinos. With this latest black eye on our already tenuous image abroad, we shudder to think of more doors slammed on our faces.

Maybe the doomsayers were exaggerating when they said the nursing leakage forced many potential nursing destinations to close the Philippine option. It was later found out that the hiring of Filipino nurses did not suffer as much as had been expected from the fallout.

But it would be too presumptuous and cavalier to believe that the leakage did not make many overseas destinations sit back and do some rethinking regarding our nurses. Now, if they have chosen to give us a second chance, what could their reaction be to this latest scandal.

It may be easy and tempting to pass off these attempts to cheat our way to a license as a product of our economic desperation. Unfortunately, social conditions are never any justification for social disintegration.

Cheating must never be a method for social advancement, and the longer we allow this attitude to take root in a growing number of Filipinos, the more sweeping will be the derogatory worldview of our people. Pretty soon we may hear more doors slamming on our faces.