Playing with Fire
Injustice
By Gonzalo Duque
IT’S easily the scourge of the century in this country.
The utterly sad fate that befell the 2006 batch of nursing board passers is unending.
Most of us who have followed the series of events vis a vis the ill-fated nursing exams have been helplessly watching on the sidelines, and here, we know that we have a big number of tragic victims of an ugly fate.
There’s a universal dictum, it’s better to set l00 guilty people free than convict one who is innocent. Nagdecision na nga ang Court of Appeals, e wala pa rin! Pesteng buhay ito oo.
A portion in the CA decision says that those who reviewed with the review centers that allegedly provided the leakage could take their oath, “but once found to have benefited from the leakage will have their license revoked.” Que barbaridad! It’s a completely wrong assertion, if you ask me.
Allow me to take your memory to the infamous bar examinations some 3 years back. Consider what the Supreme Court did to a bar examiner who was caught to have “leaked” the question and answer sheets to his fraternity brothers from the prestigious (?) Ateneo College of Law.
It’s on record that the Supreme Court nullified the subject of commercial law in the controversial bar exam because it was tainted one, the “leaked” one was there, and yes, the high court did just that; it nullified that portion and ordered a re-computation of the grades on the remaining subjects. This benign act by the court was a show of sympathy to the bar candidates who had to retake the bar with the entire unquantifiable burden on the examinees.
Surely those who benefited from the bar leakage (they were Ateneans, mind you!) should have been disbarred, if we follow the Appellate Court’s line of argument in the unfortunate nursing board exam lately.
You see there are in our midst unconscionable moralists who do not understand the functions of the courts keep and yet keep on proselytizing their own brand of ethical conduct. But in this case, the august judicial body was exercising its duty not only as a court of law but as a court of equity as well. If they benefited from the leakage, they are not supposed to be punished UNLESS they conspired with the leakage providers.
Do not forget even for a moment that the board examinees paid dearly for their review efforts, they painfully, hopefully, dutifully attended their review classes in utter faith in the programs of the review centers, and what the heck did they know about the leaked items, which were invalidated without them, yes, these hapless board takers knowing that what they were absorbing were leaked or not leaked! And now, they were invalidated and ordered recomputed!
I could not blame one parent who was privy to his daughter’s dignified struggle, her anxieties, waking up deep in the night, poring over her review materials, closing the door to friends and relatives to drink all the valuable review materials and in all innocence and honesty made a promise to the Lord that when she passes, she would have the awaited moment to serve her family and country . . . now, what? That mournful father wanted to fly into rage and kill the PRC people!
Clearly, walang kasalanan ang anak. Walang kamalay malay na ang ni-re-re view ay leaked material pala. Anong kasalanan nun?
What happened in the bar, the court said, was that there’s nothing more to compute.
May I express my sympathy, too, to those who were ordered to re-take the test on questions 3 and 4 on the basis of the fact that the Professional Regulations Commission had made a big error, an abuse of discretion.
By jove, and in the name of fairness, these innocent souls who were only there to think of professional growth, family and country should be allowed to take their oath.
My simple faith as a lawyer, as a person, as a human being, and as one who has a covenant with the truth and fairness, and under the mighty One watching over all of us, I solemnly submit that the innocent be spared from the ignominy of re-take. Walang kasalanan ang mga yan!
Mark my word. Once appealed to the Supreme Court, which is a wiser court, the decision would be fair one, in favor of the innocent souls. That, after all, is what justice means to all of us.
* * *
Many Punch readers called us up after they read my item of a one billion peso robbery in Tondaligan in our last week’s issue. The callers wanted details. I said go to the DENR, because I merely picked the item from that office.
I understand the Speaker whose house is located right smack in the “robbed” parcels of government properties is very mad at the information. An investigation is going on; I was told by a former Tondaligan administrator. Maybe, it’s best that he be interviewed by our enterprising reporters… And let’s ask the DENR: ano ba talaga?
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/playing-with-fire/)
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