DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, CULTURE AND SPORTS (DECS) AND DIRECTOR OF CENTER FOR EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT, PETITIONERS, VS. ROBERTO REY C. SAN DIEGO AND JUDGE TERESITA DIZON-CAPULON…

The issue before us is mediocrity.  The question is whether a person who has
thrice failed the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) is entitled to take it
again.

The petitioner contends
he may not, under its rule that –

h).  A student shall be allowed only three
(3) chances to take the NMAT.  After
three (3) successive failures, a student shall not be allowed to take the NMAT for the fourth time.

The private respondent insists he can, on constitutional grounds.

But
first the facts.

The private respondent is
a graduate of the University of the East with a degree of Bachelor of Science
in Zoology.  The
petitioner claims that he took the NMAT three times and flunked it as many times.^[1] When he applied to take it again, the
petitioner rejected his application on the basis of the aforesaid rule.  He then went to the Regional Trial Court of
Valenzuela, Metro Manila, to compel his admission to the test.

In his original petition
for mandamus, he first invoked his constitutional rights to academic freedom and
quality education.  By agreement of the
parties, the private respondent was allowed to take the NMAT scheduled on
April
16, 1989, subject to
the outcome of his petition.^[2] In an amended petition filed with leave of
court, he squarely challenged
the constitutionality of MECS
Order No. 12, Series of 1972, containing the above-cited rule. 
The additional grounds raised were due process and equal protection.

After hearing, the
respondent judge rendered a decision on July 4, 1989, declaring the challenged order invalid and
granting the petition.  Judge Teresita
Dizon-Capulong held that the petitioner had been deprived of his right to
pursue a medical education through an arbitrary exercise of the police power.^[3]

We cannot sustain the respondent judge.  Her decision must be reversed.

In Tablarin v. Gutierrez,^[4] this Court upheld the constitutionality of
the NMAT as a measure intended to limit the admission to medical schools only
to those who have initially proved their competence and preparation for a
medical education.  Justice Florentino P.
Feliciano declared for a unanimous Court:

Perhaps the only issue that needs some consideration is whether
there is some reasonable relation between the prescribing of passing the NMAT
as a condition for admission to medical school on the one hand, and the
securing of the health and safety of the general community, on the other
hand.  This question is perhaps most usefully
approached by recalling that the regulation of the practice of medicine
in all its branches has long been recognized
as a reasonable method of protecting the health and safety of the public.  That the power to regulate and control the
practice of medicine includes the power to regulate admission to the ranks of
those authorized to practice medicine, is also well recognized.  Thus, legislation and administrative
regulations requiring those who wish to practice medicine first to take and
pass medical board examinations have long ago been recognized as valid exercises of governmental power. 
Similarly, the establishment of minimum medical educational requirements
– i.e, the completion
of prescribed courses in a recognized medical school – for admission to the medical profession, has also been sustained as a
legitimate exercise of the regulatory authority of the state.  What we have before us in the instant case is
closely related:  the regulation of access to medical schools.  MECS Order No. 52, s. 1985, as noted earlier,
articulates the rationale of regulation of this type:  the improvement of the professional and
technical quality of the graduates of medical schools, by upgrading the quality of those admitted to
the student body of the medical schools.  That upgrading is sought by selectivity in the process of admission,
selectivity consisting, among other things, of limiting admission to those who
exhibit in the required degree the aptitude for medical studies and eventually
for medical practice.  The need to
maintain, and the difficulties of maintaining, high standards in our
professional schools in general, and medical schools in particular, in the
current state of our social and economic development, are widely known.

We believe that the government is entitled to prescribe an
admission test like the NMAT as a means of achieving its stated objective of
“upgrading the selection of applicants into [our] medical schools”
and of “improv[ing] the quality of medical education in the country.”
Given the widespread use today of such
admission tests in, for instance, medical schools in the United States of
America (the Medical College Admission Test [MCAT] and quite probably in other
countries with far more developed educational resources than our own, and taking into account the failure or
inability of the petitioners to even attempt to prove otherwise, we are
entitled to hold that the NMAT is reasonably related to the securing of the
ultimate end of legislation and regulation in this area.  That end, it is useful to recall, is the
protection of the public from the potentially deadly effects of incompetence
and ignorance in those who would undertake to treat our bodies and minds for disease
or trauma.

However, the respondent
judge agreed with the petitioner that the said case was not applicable.  Her reason was that it upheld only the
requirement for the admission test and said nothing about the so-called
“three-flunk rule.”

We see no reason why the rationale in the Tablarin case cannot
apply to the case at bar.  The issue
raised in both cases is the
academic preparation of the applicant. 
This may be gauged at least initially by the admission test and, indeed with more
reliability, by the three-flunk rule. 
The latter cannot be regarded any less valid than the former in the
regulation of the medical profession.

There is no need to redefine here the police power of the
State.  Suffice it to repeat that the
power is validly exercised if (a) the
interests of the public generally, as distinguished
from those of a particular class, require the interference of the State, and
(b) the means employed are reasonably necessary to the attainment of the object
sought to be accomplished and not unduly oppressive
upon individuals.^[5]

In other words, the proper exercise of the police power requires
the concurrence of a lawful subject and a lawful method.

The subject of the challenged regulation is certainly within the
ambit of the police power.  It is the
right and indeed the responsibility of the State to insure that the medical
profession is not infiltrated by incompetents to whom patients may unwarily
entrust their lives and health.

The method employed by the challenged regulation is not
irrelevant to the purpose of the law nor is it arbitrary or oppressive.  The three-flunk rule is intended to insulate
the medical schools and ultimately the medical profession from the intrusion of
those not qualified to be doctors.

While every person is entitled to aspire to be a doctor, he does
not have a constitutional right to be a doctor. 
This is true of any other calling in which the public interest is
involved; and the closer the link, the longer the bridge to one’s
ambition.  The State has the
responsibility to harness its human resources and to see to it that they are
not dissipated or, no less worse, not used at all.  These resources must be applied in a manner that will best promote the
common good while also giving the individual a sense of satisfaction.

A person cannot insist on being a physician if he will be a
menace to his patients.  If one who wants
to be a lawyer may prove better
as a plumber, he should be so
advised and adviced.  Of course, he may
not be forced to be a plumber, but on the other hand he may not force his entry
into the bar.  By the same token, a student who has demonstrated promise as a pianist cannot be shunted aside to
take a course in nursing,
however appropriate this career may be for others.

The right to quality education invoked by the private respondent
is not absolute.  The Constitution also
provides that “every citizen has the right to choose a profession or
course of study, subject to fair, reasonable and equitable admission and
academic requirements.”^[6]

The private respondent must yield to the challenged rule and give
way to those better prepared.  Where even
those who have qualified may
still not be accommodated in our already crowded medical schools, there is all
the more reason to bar those who, like
him, have been tested and found wanting.

The contention that the challenged rule violates the equal protection
clause is not well-taken.  A law does not
have to operate with equal force on all persons or things to be conformable to Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution.

There can be no question that a substantial distinction exists
between medical students and other students who are not subjected to the NMAT
and the three-flunk rule.  The medical
profession directly affects the very lives of the people, unlike other careers
which, for this reason, do not
require more vigilant regulation.  The
accountant, for example, while belonging to an equally respectable profession,
does not hold the same delicate responsibility as that of the physician and so
need not be similarly treated.

There would be unequal protection if some applicants who have
passed the tests are admitted and others who have also qualified are denied
entrance.  In other words, what the equal
protection requires is equality among equals.

The Court feels that it is not enough to simply invoke the right
to quality education as a guarantee of the Constitution:  one must show that he is entitled to it
because of his preparation and promise. 
The private respondent has failed the NMAT five times.^[7]
While his persistence is noteworthy, to say the least, it is certainly
misplaced, like a hopeless love.

No depreciation is
intended or made against the private respondent.  It is stressed that a person who does not qualify in the NMAT is not an absolute
incompetent unfit for any work or occupation. 
The only inference is that
he is probably better, not for the medical profession, but for another calling
that has not excited his interest.

In the former, he may be a bungler or at least lackluster; in the
latter, he is more likely to succeed and may even be outstanding.  It is for the appropriate calling that he is
entitled to quality education for
the full harnessing of his potentials and the sharpening of his latent talents
toward what may even be a brilliant future.

We cannot have a society
of square pegs in round holes, of dentists who should never have left the farm
and engineers who should have studied banking and teachers who could be better as merchants.

It is time indeed that the State took decisive steps to regulate
and enrich our system of education by directing the student to the course for
which he is best suited as determined by initial tests and evaluations.  Otherwise, we may be “swamped with
mediocrity,” in the words of Justice Holmes, not because we are lacking in
intelligence but because we are a nation of misfits.

WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED.  The decision of the respondent court dated January 13, 1989, is REVERSED, with
costs against the private respondent.  It
is so ordered.

Fernan, C.J., Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera, Gutierrez, Jr., Paras,
Feliciano, Gancayco, Padilla, Bidin, Sarmiento, Cortes, Griño-Aquino,
Medialdea, and Regalado, JJ., concur.

^[1]
A check with the Department of Education showed that the private respondent
had actually taken and flunked four tests already and was applying to
take a fifth examination.

^[2]
He also failed this fifth test.

^[3]
Rollo, pp. 26-34.

^[4]
152 SCRA 730.

^[5]
US v. Toribio, 15 Phil. 85; Fabie v. City of Manila, 21 Phil.
486; Ynot v. Intermediate Appellate Court, 148 SCRA 659.

^[6]
Article XIV, Section 5(3).

^[7]
See Footnote Nos. 1& 2.