La Salle summons erring player anew

La Salle last night invited one of its varsity players being investigated on the alleged falsified documents he submitted to gain entry to the school even as it vowed that there would be no whitewash or a witch-hunt in the inquiry.

This developed as the Department of Education (DepEd) yesterday bared 10 students used spurious documents to be able to enter colleges or universities, including the La Salle cager whose ineligibility forced La Salle to offer to surrender its 2004 UAAP crown and forfeit its runner-up finish this year.

"We’ve invited the player in question and right now we are at the stage of pursuing the investigation," said Lito Tanjuatco, La Salle’s representative to the UAAP Board of Trustees. "We’re trying to speed it up and finish it as soon as possible."

However, Tanjuatco added that they hope that the player will finally appear since there were reports that he was already invited twice last week to shed light on the matter but didn’t show up.

"We’re hoping that the player will appear. After the investigation we will come up with a comprehensive report and hold a press conference and adequately present it to the media," said Tanjuatco.

While La Salle had been trying not to reveal the player’s name to "protect his privacy," newspaper reports have singled out Mark Benitez.

Meanwhile, DepEd Officer-in-Charge (OIC) and Undersecretary for Plans and Programs Fe Hidalgo disclosedthe school documents of Benitez, including the Philippine Educational Placement Test Certificate of Rating (PEPTCR), are suspected to be fake.

The cager’s father Mesh has earlier denied the allegation and said that they have a copy of the PEPTCR document attesting his son passed the exam on his second try which was administered by the DepEd itself last Nov. 17, 2002.

Hidalgo said it was Director Nelia Benito, chief of the  DepEd’s National Educational  Testing and Research Center  (NETRC), who confirmed that there were 10 students who have been found with fake school documents.

The NETRC is the sole agency issuing the PEPTCR. It has a security logo for genuine documents, thus it could easily say whether or not a document is fake.

"There are 10 students whose papers they found to be fake," said Hidalgo. She, however, declined to identify the nine other students. She also did not confirm whether the others are also basketball players or student athletes.

"We will continue to investigate because they (students and parents) do not want to talk. If they do not want to talk, then they could still be held liable. We will continue to investigate. There were 10 people with faked documents, including Benitez," Hidalgo said.

Hidalgo did not discount the possibility that there could have been an inside job.

"It could be an inside job. But the insiders know that these can be checked. We need to find out who could be behind this scam. Is it the athlete himself or they are in cahoots with somebody here?," said Hidalgo.

With regards to the liability of the school, Hidalgo said that if the school accepted the student in good faith and it has the confidence in the reliability of the documents, it is not liable. — With reports from Sandy Araneta