When a Month Becomes a Year

I went home after lunch from school yesterday and went to catch up on my sleep. I awoke refreshed and took to tweaking my computer when the call came. It was a land-line phone call and on the other end is a person from my agency. I found it weird that they call me at home but I realized I must've missed their call on my celphone. It must be something urgent for them to have call me directly at home. Alas, it was. I have received my ATT that morning and a few hours later news about NPTE test taking blew up in everybody's faces. PT graduates from India, Pakistan, Egypt and the Philippines are barred from taking the NPTE until the autumn of 2011 when the NPTE-YRLY exam will be available due to leakage of exam questions which is a serious offense to the FSBPT.

In my stunned disbelief, I posted an angry message on my Facebook wall which was followed by a series of text messages and Facebook messages and chats from friends and classmates here and abroad regarding the PT crisis we are facing. Soon after, everyone knew we were all in knee-deep shit and not knowing how to get out of it. I was scheduled for an embassy interview on the 22nd and my exam is next month and they're telling me I have to postpone everything for a year? What the hell was that? I paced around for awhile blowing smoke to try and discern what am I to do and finally decided on my most primal defense mechanism. I need a beer, a cold one. Ahhh lots of 'em. To make the long story short, I am soon sitting with Carmz, Dennis and Jini at SV chugging down beer.

The issue regarding St Louis was a very old issue that everyone thought had already died. FSBPT has thoroughly examined the evidences that they have gathered and they perhaps hadn't found sufficient evidence to prove that the review center was doling out recalled questions to students. If they had, they wouldn't have lost twice at the Department of Justice regarding the matter. Why then would they single out the four countries with special mention of the Philippines and not allow their graduates to take the exam? The answer is simple. There are fewer and fewer American students taking up PT due to the high cost of education and the rigid exam structure which has a high mortality rate. India, Pakistan, Egypt and the Philippines on the other hand send a lot of PTs in the US to work. It is a certainty that the Americans may be threatened that foreigners would take over the PT healthcare field in their own backyard. Why resurrect an already dead issue with the Filipino review centers? Filipinos have an edge over their counterparts because they speak English well and can hold high positions in PT clinics compared to other PTs who are doomed not to rise high in the corporate ladder because of language barrier, like Korean PTs.

It is not our fault that many Filipinos can pass the exam and few Americans can. Yeah, blame it on leakage of test questions for your convenience. But I'm pretty sure a lot of employers and hospitals would appeal this moratorium on taking the NPTE. They would not take this matte sitting down. There are a lot of them who prefer Pinoy PTs because we communicate well and are hardworking. Hopefully, FSBPT will see the fact that it is downright immoral and inhumane to punish everyone for the sins of a few. We will not give up our dreams and we will fight against this senseless bigotry and restore justice to our profession.