"The long agony is over."

That was how West Negros College nursing graduate Nelia Gonzales described the Board of Nursing's finally allowing her and her classmates to take their oaths yesterday after oral assessments conducted this week.

There were 181 in Iloilo and 163 in Bacolod who took their oaths yesterday.

And as of 12:30 a.m. today, about 130 more WNC nursing examinees were set to take their oaths at the Business Inn in Bacolod City.

West Negros College president Suzette Agustin said the oathtaking only showed that WNC has been standing for what is true. She said WNC has fulfilled its commitment to the nursing examinees that they will take their oath, the administrative charges filed by the BON against them will be dropped and that their licenses would be released.

She said reports calling WNC incompetent because of what happened to its nursing graduates are unfair.

How can WNC be incompetent when 44 of its nursing graduates were in the top 20 of the December 2005 Nursing License Examination? she asked. She also pointed out that the WNC nursing graduates passing percentage of 79.46 percent way above the national average 52 percent.

Meanwhile, Board of Nursing member Remedios Fernandez who administered the oathtaking of the Bacolod WNC nursing board passers at the Business Inn in Bacolod City last night, said she will submit their observations of the two-day oral assessment to the Commission on Higher Education.

Those who were allowed to take their oaths had satisfactorily complied with requirements, but those who did not join the oath taking will have to submit some documents for further investigation, she said.

She said she has ordered clinical instructors of the WNC nursing examinees to validate the number of hours and days of duty by the examinees in a week to support their claims.

Fernandez said the BON will meticulously check the subject offerings and even the pre-requisite subjects among others to avoid the same incident in the future.

The Professional Regulation Commission and the BON had withheld the release of the December Nurse Licensure Examination results of 599 WNC nursing graduates prompting the filing of charges against the BON and PRC before courts in Iloilo, Bacolod and Cebu and the Court of Appeals for mandamus.

The PRC and BON said they withheld the examination results because of alleged course overloading.

Congressmen, many of whom were from Western Visayas, put pressure during the House hearing of the PRC and BON budgets prompting their officials to agree to the release the board examination results of the 599 WNC graduates, showing that 476 of them passed.

However, the PRC and BON filed charges against the WNC graduates just the same for alleged coarse overloading and said the nursing licenses passers would be released only after hearings were concluded. But pressure from the WV congressmen led the PRC and BON to agree to conduct oral assessments this week to determine the WNC nursing graduates' compliance with requirements.

Gonzales, who is also a lawyer, said the two cases they filed against the BON and PRC before the Iloilo RTC was dismissed Monday for being moot and academic, while a similar case in Cebu was also dismissed.

She said a petition for mandamus pending before the CA is also up for dismissal.

Leon Moya, lawyer of the Bacolod WNC nursing graduates, said a petition for mandamus they filed before the Bacolod RTC is also expected to be dismissed soon for being moot and academic.

He said the students had reserved the right to file a damage suit but the decision to do so would be up to them to decide.

Gonzales, on the other hand, said she had no plans to take further legal action.

She said students who failed the December board examination who satisfied the BON during their oral assessments this week will be also allowed to retake the test in June 2006.*DMG

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