boards and bars

The recent news on the nursing board as well as the old scandals regarding the bar and doctor's exams a few years back reminded me of my bean-counting exam-taking experience.

I chose this specific review center back in college since they assured the reviewers that they would be taken cared of, and in a truthful manner. Boy, it was really rigorous; we had three pre-board exams instead of the normal two. And this review center prided itself on an honest system, using its own review materials and shunning other review centers' materials. As such, I knew my strengths (auditing problems) and my weakness (business law & taxation and financial accounting theory).

The more popular review centers were less than vigilant in killing rumors on their access to the test scores, as well as giving special treatment for reviewers coming from prominent schools. I’m saying this euphemistically, of course.

I cannot claim to be a model Filipino citizen and I knew even beforehand that I’d be using my license merely as a formality, but in this instance I put a premium on how I passed this examination, not just the end-goal of passing.

As for the recommendations that the questionable board exams should be validated by making the examinees take the exams again, I’m all for it. If the board results for my batch were dubious, of course I’d be pissed if I had to take it again. But dropping subjects out of expediency’s consideration, just like what the Supreme Court did for the bar exam and what the Professional Regulation Commission is going to do for the nursing board, will make me question if I earned that plastic card. And yes, I’d be ticked off because studying for the board was the hardest I’ve ever studied, even more so than college. But the alternative of doubting your own credentials is unfathomable.

And even if they did truly pass the whole exam, and even if most people don’t ask you what batch you passed and if you’re really good at Mercantile Law or Sets III or V or Auditing Problems; you’d still ask yourself if you’re worth those suffixes at the end of your name (even if you don’t append these initials). It’s like sending a car out of the factory without the steering wheel.

This is when I fully appreciate Conrado de Quiros’s position on the snap election option. The empress may have truly won, even by a small margin of less than 500,000. But going through the garci-calling and the numerous occurrences of vote-padding nullifies whatever she’s done. What does one do, nullify the results for Mindanao for both her and da king, then see if who beats whom? The whole election has been tainted. And a credible election should be in order. An election with a credible COMELEC.

So is this why we’re not pursuing a reexamination of our professionals or a snap election for the leadership, due to expediency?

I just wish the COMELEC can be cleaned though, and start this ball rolling.