Wolf, the ones who got here more than 10 years ago are fine. Those are the ones who went throught the educational system before the populist movement decided to take the country back to the stone age and not teach English or have any ethical or merit standards anymore because those were symbols of the evil "colonialist" mentality of the First World and discriminatory. As I believe we said elsewhere, more than half of the nurse/caregiver types that get a visa to the US now are rejected and sent back because they can't speak English well enough to understand instructions or pass even one of the certification exams which most states require. Luisa is considered a bad influence, she has an annoying habit of seeking perfection.

I should think the instructors would expect an older student, in a pack of youth, to understand life better and be more serious. At 30, it would be time to get your shit together and work on the future.
Don't tell me their worried about the kids self-esteem?
Hey, maybe they want to produce incompetents that can't leave the country. :idea:

Be careful not to annoy them too much, they still could mess you up if they so desired. You know how easy it would be to lose your records.... a few times. Play the game enough to let them think they've won. ;)

Bruce, you are talking about a country which kicks you OUT of the workforce at the age of 30 and will not hire you under any circumstances. They do not even accept your application. One of the reasons Lu is taking Nursing classes is they kick you out at 45 in that field only. The Phils also has a government agency which is tasked with getting as many people out of the country as possible. At this time they are mostly concentrating on shoving out as many males as possible into the slave market of the Middle East, working in construction or as deck hands or truck drivers. The Nursing exports have hit something of a snag because the agency discovered that too many of them were being deported back to the Phils in disgrace. It causes them to lose face, they actually could not care less whether the girls had the training or ability to actually DO the jobs they were leaving for.

And yes, it is all too easy to annoy one of the gatekeepers at these places. They have already thrown every stumbling block possible in Lu's way, the latest is they can't give her the diploma because the hospital claims to have not received the money she paid to the school.

That sucks, I suppose even if she gets the diploma, which are easy to forge, prospective employers or emigration/immigration officials checking back with the school could find there is no record of her attending. :(

Bruce, they don't seem to have any problem with the incompetents leaving the country. They have a problem with people who actually know what they are doing and can show up the bad products that they do manage to export. There is no money in it for the corrupt examiners to pass / certify somebody who actually knows the job. So they will make you pass through the eye of a needle to get what you want. Put you in a vice grip till you decide to "deal" with them. :p I am hoping I will be lucky enough to not get caught in the vice grip when I take the government mandated exam.

Trust me, it does not matter whether I annoy them or not. They pretty much manage to mess up on their own. If there is anything these people don't seem to have a problem getting into, it is SNAFU :3eye:

They are still trying to resolve the issue of the exam answers leakage in the 2006 Nursing board exams. There is a big debate on whether everyone should retake (whether they cheated or not) or if it should be a selective retake. The Court of Appeals ruled that it should be a "selective retake" based on certain guidelines. Personally? I would not hire anybody in this year's batch of graduates for the simple reason that you never know who really did cheat and who did not. I would not risk another person's life in their hands if there is even a shadow of a doubt about his/ her competency. I say they should all retake it! Besides, with all the hype the incident created, I doubt a decent country would hire them.

Oh, they finally got the money forwareded to them by the accounting department of the school. Now they are insisting I owe them 3 day's worth of training. I told them to go back and read my request letter and check their logbooks, I already paid for my excused abscence! Now they say 3-4 days for the training certificate and then 2 weeks for my diploma :eyebrow:

Bruce, rest assured that any documents I PRESENT are authentic and God knows how hard I have worked to get those papers LEGALLY. I have practically invested my own sweat and blood to get this far. Our school transcript is supposedly to be forwarded to the Office of the President of the Philippines in Malacanang Palace where it will receive a RED RIBBON of sorts that will signify its authenticity and shall be our official transcript to be presented to employers. I have yet to find out if that applies only to agency applications though. All the Overseas Workers of the Philippines are required to have their transcripts authenticated in that manner in order to avoid "faking" it.

I have worked too long and hard to gamble my future on any fake documents :sniff: Wish me luck...

No, no, I wasn't suggesting you have, or should mess with, fake papers. I'm saying papers are so easy to counterfit most employers check with the school for transcripts.... at least here they do.
So even if you get out with the right papers, they could screw you later if they wanted to..... at least until you have previous employers a new employer could check with, instead of the school. Peace. :D

No offense taken. No harm, no foul :) I was just trying to point out how the government is trying to make it harder to fake documents by adding safeguards. But that is not to say that something won't fall through the cracks if you really want to find a way to cheat :thepain:

Luisa can tell some funny stories about fake documents, xob. All of her life she was told by her relatives how stupid and useless she was, nevertheless she managed to graduate from college after paying for it out of her own money. As part of the systematic abuse her aunts practiced on her, she was not even allowed to walk the stage and collect her diploma. When her half-brother was bugging her aunt to get his birth and school documents for a job application, they discovered that he had not even graduated from high school and the last two years of college he did not even attend classes and so he obviously did not graduate. But he collected the "tuition" money from their grandfather regularly, got petted and praised by the aunts, and reported that he was getting excellent grades, had graduated, had lots of offers, etc. Lu already knew that her nephew had not been able to graduate from high school and the aunts had purchased his diploma. It is probably safe to say that MOST applicants for any job, school, visa, or award in the Philippines are using counterfeit documents to support many of their "accomplishments." Luisa does not, everything she has is top of the line and earned by her. In return for that, she is hated and shunned, she does not "fit in", she is not a "team player". She is "dangerous".

Don't forget that nepotism works very well in the Philippines. Job offers are aplenty when your parents are well connected and have the money to "buy" you a job. Even better if they can give you a business for a graduation gift. Whether you deserve it or not. If none of the aforementioned apply to you, the Philippines does not have unemployment or welfare. Good luck to the basic workperson :mad:

If money can be counterfeited, anything can.
I never had an original birth certificate, just a form signed by a town clerk my folks needed for something or other. It was good enough to get a passpot with, though.

A couple years ago the US Army required proof of citizenship from Boeing for all employees. Original birth certificates only, no photostats, not even my expired passport would do.

I signed an authorization and Boeing got me a real birth certificate, showed it to the Army and mailed it to me, no charge. Now I know, if I stub my toe, that's real pain....I have the papers to prove it. :D