Northern Samar 1st district Rep. Paul Daza (Ellson Quismorio/ MANILA BULLETIN)



Northern Samar 1st district Rep. Paul Daza says he agrees with Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Ted Herbosa's stand in that the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) should relax its rules. Daza, the senior deputy minority leader in the House of Representatives, made this remark as the country deals with shortage of medical professionals especially nurses. It was only last March when the Visayas lawmaker delivered a privilege speech where he highlighted the perennially low passing rate in licensure or board examinations. He cited as an example the 52.58 percent passing rate in 36 professions from 2017 to 2022. “Ibig sabihin po, kalahati po ng ating mga examinees sa maraming propesyon ay bumabagsak (What this means is half of our examinees in many professions flunk out). What our newly-appointed DOH Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said, is correct. The Professional Regulation Commission needs to ‘relax’ the rules," Daza said. "However, the solutions must be long-term rather than stop-gap measures,” he added. Daza was referring to a recent statement from Herbosa that nursing graduates who earned a 70 to 74 percent rating in the Nursing Board Exam will be utilized as an additional workforce in the healthcare system. Technically, these are non-passing scores. "It’s indeed time that we review barriers [to] employment and one of those is the difficulty in passing board exams," underscored the veteran solon. Daza said he has been discussing the atter with PRC, which he said has been very receptive. T"here are solutions—aside from rationalizing the passing rates—such as a 'modular' approach where examiners who failed the board exams but passed in certain subjects need no longer re-take the whole exam,” he said. “It’s time to break all barriers. We already have the law on free tertiary education. It’s still problematic in certain aspects but it’s a good start. What we need to work on as well is ensuring that our graduates will not join the unemployed after graduation,” Daza stressed.