Commission on Higher Education chairman Carlito Puno yesterday said the CHED is willing to allow the release of all the West Negros College nursing graduates' board examination results, but Professional Regulation Commission chair Leonor Rosero said the PRC is standing pat on its decision to release only the results of those who had loads of 35 units and below a semester.

Apparently that will mean the release of the examination results of only about five of the WNC graduates who took the tests in December, Puno told the DAILY STAR.

There are 599 WNC nursing graduates waiting for the release of their December board examination results, Nelia Gonzales, lawyer of the graduates from Iloilo who is also one of the examinees, said.

Iloilo Regional Trial Court Judge Guiljie Delfin-Lim on Feb. 13 ordered the PRC and the Board of Nursing to place the board examination papers and answer sheets of 146 WNC nursing graduates under court custody.

The 146 graduates from Iloilo had filed a petition for mandamus against the PRC and the Board of Nursing.

Gonzales said that if PRC and BON refuse to comply with the court order by Monday she will ask the court to cite their officials for contempt.

Puno said he informed the PRC that the CHED was agreeable to the release of all of the results irregardless of units taken by the students and the PRC gave some indication that it was all right for them, but yesterday morning Rosero informed him that they would only release the results of those with loads of 35 units and below.

The PRC was very insistent that determining what results to release is their turf, he said. Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella said the PRC may release the examination results of the nursing students who had loads of 35 units and below today.

The PRC claims it has the legal basis to withhold the results of the others, he said.

Puno said he agrees with the PRC that students should only be allowed 30 units a semester, unlike at the WNC where some even took as many as 49 units a semester. That is humanly impossible, he said.

He said the plight of the WNC graduates was the result of a series of errors, of which CHED had its share.

A former CHED regional director had allowed overloads at WNC but did not put a ceiling on the number of units, he said.

The CHED had been accused many times of being too regulatory so at times we try to agree to a happy balance but what we got was somebody who abused this, he said.

Puno said the CHED will issue a specific policy on number of units to be taken to prevent a repeat of what happen at WNC.

Puentevella said he will demand that the CHED come up with a clear-cut policy immediately to prevent other students in the future from becoming victims like the WNC graduates who were allowed to take the nursing board examination, only to be told that their results cannot be released.*CPG

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