Her name is Strength

By Emmanuelle

In the beginning, she was just one of the many really angry young others. Though, she might have been the very first or at least one of the very first to call attention to the matter at hand, to question its impossibility, to demand an investigation into it, to persist for action from the authorities concerned. In short, to raise the national alarm. And thanks to these young ones’ pluck, the bells were heard – from that mountain city, down to the whole of the region, and finally, in imperial Manila. As it should be, as it must be.

I write about the alleged leakage of test questions in the recent board exams for nurses. I write about a young woman, a nursing graduate of St. Louis University (SLU) of Baguio City, who, unknown to most, is a Pangasinense herself, whose home and family is in Pangasinan, and who studied and graduated from an elementary school of an eastern Pangasinan town, and secondary grades from a private school in Dagupan City.

As the days and weeks wore on, I saw and heard less and less of these young ones. Until two days ago, during one of those Senate inquiries shown live on primetime news, there was only one of them noticeably left. I peered close to the screen. She was sitting beside Atty. Cheryl  Daytec-Yangot, the complainants’ lawyer. Her eyes focused all the while on the men and women of the committee on civil service chaired by Senator Rodolfo Biazon. She never gave the camera a self-conscious glance; she was not there to bathe in the glory of the moment.  She was there for a purpose less flighty than glory.

The R.A. Gapuz Review Center may regard her perpetually accusing finger a prickly thorn in its hide. Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) chair Leonor Tripon-Rosero may snub her complaint as totally non-existent with the quips there is no leakage and leakage is a thing of the past. Nursing graduates who garnered some of the slots of the ten highest scores in the just-concluded board exams for nurses may blush with embarrassment at the implied meaning of her accusation. They all may call her a brash, very annoyingly persistent young lady.

I call her brave. And her name is Strength.

At SLU, nursing enrollees may count to more than three of thousands at freshman year. At junior year, enrolment is weeded down to lower than five hundred.

To be counted within the lucky but very narrow bracket is already a credit to the student’s innate intelligence, excellent study habits, determination and perseverance, and of course, the family’s unwavering support.

To be among top twenty of SLU nursing graduates is a salute to excellence. To pass the nursing board exams among the top twenty highest scorers is worth the boom of gun salutes. The young lady I call Strength did both. 

No, she did not benefit from the alleged leakage. Minutes before the board exams, while she was lazily lounging about, psyching herself for the coming ordeal, she noticed groups of other examinees rushing through last minute browsing of review materials of uniform thickness and print.  She also noticed most of these individuals sporting the printed logo of a review center. Somehow, she got hold of a sheaf of the review material. She only had time to give it a cursory glance as the test was about to start.

When she buckled down to the test, reality struck. She was looking at replica test questions. She had glanced through them before. A very few minutes before.

As soon as the exams ended, the fight began. Her fight.  

The father talks to me of her daughter. He is both proud and afraid for her. She tells him, the fight is not only to demand an investigation into and the subsequent cleansing of an institution that is supposed to act as the licensing and regulatory body for all professionals. It is also to demand fairness and justice for those who took the board on their own without the benefit of any irregularity and who are now displaced, ranked below the 42% passing rate (only 17,000 passed of the 42,000 who took the exams in 11 testing centers around the country).

I ask the father the usual questions. Was his daughter an activist? Or a rebel of lost causes? A dreamer?  She was neither an activist nor a rebel. Though, she speaks out her mind. She reads a lot. She writes. In fact, she was the editor-in-chief of the high school paper way back then, when she was even younger than she is now, if that is possible.

Now, I see.

Don’t let us lose her and the rest of our youth, too. Their freshness, their strength and bravery, their trust and idealism. Are you listening – PRC, COMELEC, Congress, Senate, Supreme Court, our Armed Forces? Your honor, GMA?

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