TACLOBAN CITY — For the first time since it offered a social worker degree 27 years ago, the Leyte Normal University (LNU) based in this city obtained a 100 percent passing rate in the recent social worker licensure examinations.
All 67 LNU examinees passed the exams and eight of them also made it in the top 10, according to Lilibeth Fallorina, academic chairman of the university’s Arts and Humanities Department.
“I was overwhelmed by the outcome of this year’s licensure exams. I was speechless, especially that this happened when we are still in a pandemic,” she said.
Fiona Yvannie Tonido Murillo ranked third with 87.80 percent followed by sixth placer Geralene Mahinay Terceño (87.20 percent), and seventh placer Eduard Abrera Cañares, (87 percent).
Mary Guen Sablayan, Erika Morales Setosta, and Christelle Erika Canillas Toring placed eighth with a score of 86.60 percent, while Pamela Jane Rojas Pido (86.40 percent,) and Nicu Bernard Egos Baylos (86.20 percent) ranked ninth and tenth, respectively.
Fallorina attributed the unprecedented performance of the students to their rigid training and review conducted before the examination.
“I want to congratulate them for a very commendable performance. I witnessed how they worked so hard to achieve their goals. They all deserve it,” she said.
“However, passing the board or topping the examination is just the beginning. What is important is when they are already working. They must have the dedication to help specifically unprivileged clients,” she added.
The university promised to give cash incentives to those who made it to the top 10.
Cañares, 22, the batch’s magna cum laude, said he was very happy when he learned that he ranked seventh among the 2,955 passers of the social worker licensure examination held from Sept. 19 to 21, 2022.
“All I prayed for was to pass the examination, but God was so good that I made it to the top 10,” he said in a phone interview.
Cañares, a native of Carigara town, Leyte, is the second in a brood of five. His mother, Lydia, 46, is a housewife while his father, Edmundo, 47, is a farmer.
Pido, 25, who is from Alangalang town, also in Leyte, also did not expect that she would get the ninth-highest rating.
“I was browsing the internet at our neighbor’s house when the results of the examination were released. I was shocked when I saw my name in the top 10,” she said.
Pido said she immediately went home and conveyed the good news to her mother who works as a saleslady in a business establishment in Cavite.
“I promised my mother that she will stop working and that I will help send my youngest sister to school. Now that promise will be fulfilled,” she said.
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