La Carlota City College has sent a disclaimer to the Commission on Higher Education on the list it furnished to Senate President Franklin Drilon, naming it as one of six schools in Negros that have a zero passing rate in licensure examinations.

Drilon made the disclosure based on a report of the CHED submitted to him during deliberations on its budget for 2006.

Lydia Peñafiel, LCCC dean of instruction and officer-in-charge, said in a letter to Carlito Puno, CHED Chairman, that the CHED's claims is unfair and without basis, maligns LCCC's name and creates the impression that it maintains substandard programs, and is incapable of producing quality graduates.

Peñafiel said their zero passing rate in accountancy licensure examinations is due to the fact that they had few, or no examination takers in the last five years.

LCCC has made a noteworthy performance in agriculture licensure exams, she said.

In 2003, when the agriculture licensure examinations were first given, their passing rate was 43 percent, with three out of seven takers hurdling the exam, she said.

Eighty agriculture graduates from all over the province took the review classes at the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos that year and of the seven who passed, three were students of LCCC, she said.

LCCC is also the first city college in the country to have been accredited by the Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and Universities in the Philippines, she added.

She also said that if the Commission had read their annual reports, LCCC would not have been unfairly labeled as a school with a "zero" passing rate in licensure examinations.*

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