The June 11 and 12 tests were held in the cities of Cebu, Iloilo and Tacloban in the Visayas; and in Cagayan de Oro, Davao and Zamboanga in Mindanao.
“There is not an iota of evidence to suggest that tests held in the South were attended with anomalies, so there’s no reason to torture these honest nurses with another round of testing,“ Recto said in a statement.
“Why punish them when they were far from the scene of the crime so to speak? Proximity, or the lack of it, rules them out as participants in the cheating,” he said.
“If there’s robbery in Manila, would you take the fingerprints of people in far away Zamboanga? I don’t think the leaked questions were transmitted through mental telepathy,” Recto said.
Passers who took the test in three Luzon cities – Legazpi, Tuguegarao, Lucena — should also be exempted, he added.
Recto said the National Bureau of Investigation’s probe into the leak of questions ahead of the test concluded that the incident was confined only to Manila and Baguio City.
“Should there be a court-sanctioned re-test, then it should only be in these cities, and only on subjects which have been put under a cloud of doubt,“ he said.
Recto said Visayas, Mindanao, Southern Tagalog, Bicol and Cagayan Valley takers of the 500-question test passed it “fair and square.”
Recto said the planned re-take of the nursing exams should be given free of charge.
"Maraming kalabaw ang mabebenta kung pagbabayarin uli ang mga mga kukuha ng test," (Many carabaos [water buffalos] would have to be sold if the examinees would be required to pay again) he said. (MindaNews)