Tit for tat: Puentevella threatens Americans

An administration congressman on Tuesday threatened American citizens who will break the law in the Philippines would have a hard time dealing with the government and the country’s laws. Bacolod City Rep. Monico Puentevella said if the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) International could not bend a little to accommodate the Philippine government’s appeal for reconsideration of its February 14 decision to deny Visa Screen Certification to passers of the June 2006 nursing licensure exam, there would come a time when Americans would have to come begging to the Philippines. “Laws are laws, but sometimes you have to bend a little to make a better world. I told them, some day when you need our help, you will remember us when we have to be strict in enforcing our laws," Puentevella said in an interview on dzBB radio early evening Tuesday. “I told them, ‘why will you burn the whole house if you’re only going to kill one rotten rat. Isang daga lang papatayin mo bakit mo papatayin buong bahay," he said. “Someday they will also come to us begging. They say they are just following their mandate. i told them we will also follow our laws. Someday, you will also have problems," said Puentevella, a close ally of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The lawmaker said he did not mention about the case involving US Marines Lance Corporal Daniel Smith, convicted recently for raping a 22-year-old woman in Subic, Zambales in November 2005, but stressed he gave “insinuations" to the American officials of the CGFNS. “They asked, ‘what do you mean?’ I told them, you know, we have many American citizens also and sometimes they go out of the line, but sometimes we bend a little even with our laws just to accommodate our friendship. We are allies," Puentevella said. “Weather weather lang ito (Everything has its own season)," the lawmaker quipped. In a tone that tends to undermine CGFNS, Puentevella said the body was just “kulang sa pansin (attention-seeking)," particularly because a new group is coming to the Philippines. “Their body language, nahalata ko after four hours, mukang kulang sa pansin itong grupong ito. Parang lalo na ngayon may pumapasok na bagong grupo. Mayroon NCLEX. Parang nagpaparamdam talaga. Parang, you know, we’re here. You better take note," Puentevella said on the dzBB radio interview. He was referring to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) that will administer the NCLEX starting this year in Manila. CGFNS earlier explained that the VisaScreen certification process is an immigration process -- not a licensure process -- that must be satisfied to obtain an occupational visa to work in the United States. Passing NCLEX is a licensure requirement to practice nursing in the United States, but it is not a substitute for the federal VisaScreen rule. CGFNS International is an internationally recognized authority on credentials evaluation and verification pertaining to the education, registration and licensure of nurses and healthcare professionals worldwide. CGFNS International is an immigration-neutral, nonprofit organization with 30 years of experience in certifying the credentials of over 450,000 internationally educated nurses and other healthcare workers. Puentevella also raised doubts on the claim of CGFNS as a non-profit organization, noting that each nurse entering the United States have to pay $400 to CGFNS. During the interview, Puentevella also blamed the Arroyo Cabinet for bringing up the June 2006 nursing exam controversy at the time the issue was already dying down. He said students in universities that did not top the exam also made noise about allegations that test manuscripts were leaked to some favored review centers. The congressman said that while CGFNS executives voiced their high respects for the nursing education system in the Philippines and the way the PRC was conducting the licensure examinations, they said there were “too much noise" from the Philippines that reached the United States and raised doubts on the eligibility of the nursing graduates involved in the controversial exam. Puentevella said CGFNS explained to the four-man task force from the Philippines that it could not accommodate the appeal against a retake of Tests 3 and 5 of the June 2006 exam because it did not want to create a precedent case that other countries might invoke in the future. The CGFNS officials, he said, told them the controversy should have been settled among the stakeholders and should not have reached the US. Former Board of Nursing chair Eufemia Octaviano did not make it to Philadelphia because she had problems with her US visa. Puentevella was accompanied to the US by PRC chair Leonor Rosero, Remigia Nathanielz representing the Commission on Higher Education and the Philippine Nurses Association, and Renato Aquino, president of the anti-retake Alliance of New Nurses. - GMANews.TV