DECS v SAN DIEGO G.R. NO. 89572 Dec. 21, 1989
CRUZ, J.
FACTS: Roberto San Diego, private respondent, is a graduate of the University of the East with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Zoology. The petitioner, DECS, claims that he took the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) three times and flunked it as many times. When he applied to take it again, Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) rejected his application on the basis of the “three-flunk” rule contained in the MECS Order No. 12, Series of 1972 which states:
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.
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. 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.
On July 4, 1989, respondent judge rendered a decision declaring the said 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.
The SC reversed the decision.
ISSUE: WON the three-flunk rule in NMAT a valid exercise of police power.
RULING: YES. 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.
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 SC states that 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.