National interest

Here’s our dilemma: The United States cannot force the Philippines to require 17,000 passers of the "compromised" 2006 nursing licensure examinations to retake certain tainted portions of the exam.

But neither can the Philippines require the US Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) to issue Visa Screen certificates to allow these nurses to work in America legally before they hurdle State board licensing exams.

But does a Supreme Court decision requiring only 1,600 out of 17,000 passers to retake the nursing exams make a difference? Not to the United States. Don’t expect their Immigration and Naturalization Service to budge to lift the visa hold on that account.

The reason, of course, is that all countries around the world are free to adopt policies in their own national interest and act accordingly. After a fact-finding mission to the country last year, CGFNS found that the 2006 nursing licensure exams had been "compromised" and that there were "significant questions about the accurate assessment of the competencies" of many individual nursing school graduates who passed the exams.

The CGFNS further said: "The integrity of the foreign licensing system ultimately affects the health and safety of patients in the US, a primary consideration of CGFNS in its role of evaluating candidates under US immigration law."

This objection should be read narrowly, and should not be turned into a debate over the integrity or competence of the entire Philippine nursing profession. The dispute over the 2006 leaks in the nursing board exams does not call into question the "excellence" of all Philippine nurses working abroad.

The issue is precisely this: However strenuously our Professional Regulation Commission might defend their actions in connection with the questioned exams, the fact is that US authorities are not convinced. Undoubtedly, it’s their prerogative to be convinced or not convinced.

Now it’s our burden to prove to the satisfaction of CGFNS, not our Supreme Court, our Congress or local media, that the exams were not in fact compromised. Our PRC, not the Department of Foreign Affairs or Congress, must show that the tainted exams will not directly or indirectly affect the health and safety of American patients. What matters is not what our law says, but theirs. That’s the reality.

Otherwise, it’s the end of the line for the 2006 passers, insofar as working visas are concerned. It does not mean they won’t be able to travel to the US, if they can convince the consuls at the American embassy here that they have compelling reasons to return to this country.

But if they do get those coveted B-1/B-2 visas, I understand, many of them typically manage to stay in the US, and get temporary employment as caregivers, nurses’ aides, or some other position beneath their presumptive qualifications. If they, at some time, pass the State board exams, which many do, then they can change their immigration status to full-fledged registered nurses.

Many follow this route, suffering years of embarrassment and uncertainty in temporary, sometimes menial, positions. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, many who have succeeded in this risky and uncertain enterprise tell me. Most tend to relate familiar stories of lack of options, and of imperatives to sacrifice self and career for families who face real prospects of unending poverty and hopelessness.

There are also other alternatives, in addition to nursing graduates engaging in the unseemly and risky business of becoming "TNTs." Labor Secretary Art Brion has been heard to suggest a "voluntary retake" of the exam for those who are targeting the US for nursing positions.

What this means, I guess, is that those who have no intention of going to America, such as those who, for instance, prefer the Middle East or Europe for their own reasons, need not bother with retakes since the CGFNS’s visa hold is irrelevant to them.

The direction further talks with the US should take is not to accuse Washington of discrimination or to slyly whisper in their ears about "flexibilities," which is a Filipino code word for making "lusot." We should face up to the reality that what is involved here is profound doubt about the integrity of the 2006 nursing board exams.

Even our own regulatory agencies have admitted to the leaks. i.e. cheating. You can cut it any way you want — talk about poor successful examinees who had nothing to do with the anomaly, for example — but the stark fact is that we blew it.

We can’t expect other countries who consider accreditation of foreign professionals essential in justifying the hiring of those foreigners to citizens who avail of their services to just look the other way and pretend the irregularity never happened.

Our Supreme Court may read the equities of the situation one way. Other countries are reading our hesitation and inaction as less than wholehearted commitment to the integrity and, more important, the trustworthiness of our accreditation system.

In other words, our domestic politics may dictate that the matter be handled in some, usually inconclusive, way. But in this case, I’m glad that another country has opened our eyes to the international implications of this inaction and inconclusiveness.

Are there innocent victims to the blatant politicization of what essentially is a case of either plain negligence or ignorance of those that administered the 2006 nursing exams? Of course there are: those who passed the exams without taking advantage of the leaks. Unfortunately, no one you talk to seems prepared, or is able, to undertake the messy task of segregating the innocent from the guilty. Thus, ALL the successful examinees are unfairly tarred with the same brush.

That’s where we are. We didn’t have to get to this point if the PRC and the Labor Department had been more forthright about recommending to the President a firm course of action. Now that the sky has fallen, Chicken Little should stop crying about doomsday scenarios. The thing to do now is to move and act, with more agility and resoluteness than certain government officials have so far evinced.