While juggling hospital duty and finishing her final pharmacy coursework, a 21-year-old graduate from Siaton, Negros Oriental quietly sat for one of the most demanding medical entrance examinations in the country — and walked away with a flawless score that placed her in the uppermost tier of all examinees nationwide.
Queenie Roda Futalan, a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Negros Oriental State University (NORSU) under the College of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Allied Health Sciences, obtained a perfect General Performance Standard score of 800 on the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT), along with a percentile rank of 99 or higher. The result was certified by the Center for Educational Measurement (CEM), the official body that administers and validates NMAT scores for medical school applicants across the Philippines. Her official Examinee Report Form carries the date of May 6, 2026.
According to the Center for Educational Measurement, the NMAT is the standardized entrance examination required for admission to all accredited medical schools in the Philippines. A perfect score of 800 is considered exceedingly rare even among the country's top-performing examinees, making Futalan's achievement on a first attempt all the more remarkable.
Top of Her Class at NORSU
Futalan graduated as the top student in her BS Pharmacy batch at NORSU and was the sole recipient of Latin honors across the entire college among her batchmates. She earned Magna Cum Laude distinction, finishing only 0.02 grade points below what would have made her the first-ever Summa Cum Laude in the college's history.
Her academic consistency was recognized repeatedly throughout her undergraduate years. Futalan appeared on the Dean's List every school year from 2022 to 2025, and in academic year 2023–2024, she was the only Dean's Lister from her entire batch, according to information provided by Futalan. She was also designated a Presidential Academic Awardee during her studies at NORSU and carried a DOST-SEI scholarship from the Department of Science and Technology–Science Education Institute for the duration of her undergraduate program.
Her record of academic distinction started well before university. At Siaton Science High School in the southern portion of Negros Oriental, she completed secondary education with High Honors before enrolling at NORSU.
Studying Under Pressure: Hospital Duty and NMAT at the Same Time
What sets Futalan's result apart from many high scorers is the context in which she prepared. According to information she provided, Futalan was actively completing her hospital duty obligations and wrapping up her pharmacy degree when she sat for the NMAT. She did not have the luxury of a dedicated review period free from academic or clinical responsibilities — a circumstance that underscores the weight of her perfect score.
The NMAT is generally taken by students who have completed or are close to completing a pre-medicine undergraduate degree. The exam covers multiple domains: verbal ability, inductive reasoning, quantitative skills, biology, physics, social sciences, and mental ability, all of which feed into the composite General Performance Standard score.
Competitive Academic Achievements Outside the Classroom
Futalan's accomplishments extend well beyond semester grades. She won the championship at the College Day Quiz Bowl in 2025 and placed third in both NORSU's 117th and 118th Founding Anniversary Quiz Bowls. In 2024, she competed at the FCJPPha National Pharmacy Quiz Bowl, finishing 10th against pharmacy teams drawn from institutions across the country.
In terms of organizational involvement, she served as Marketing Representative of the Junior Philippine Pharmacists Association–NORSU Chapter and contributed to question development for the World Pharmacists Day 2025 Quiz Bowl hosted at NORSU. Earlier in 2026, she also joined the De Mira Memorial Medical-Dental Mission in Dauin as a volunteer.
A Perfect Score, but Applications Limited by Finances
Despite holding credentials that would make her a competitive applicant at any medical school in the Philippines, Futalan has narrowed her applications to just two institutions — both of which are currently eligible under the Commission on Higher Education's Medical Scholarship and Return Service (MSRS) Program.
She is applying to West Visayas State University and Cebu Normal University–Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, the two schools presently covered under the CHED MSRS Program. As described by CHED, the program covers tuition and related educational costs in exchange for a return-service obligation, requiring degree holders to serve in the public health system after completing medical school.
"I am only applying to these two schools that are eligible for the CHED MSRS Program to lessen the financial strain on my family," Futalan said in a statement.
She acknowledged that without financial considerations, she would also have pursued applications to St. Luke's College of Medicine, Cebu Institute of Medicine, and the University of the Philippines College of Medicine — schools widely considered among the most selective medical institutions in the country.
A Broader Issue: High Achievers Constrained by Medical School Costs
Futalan's circumstances illustrate a reality that affects many academically accomplished students from provincial and lower-income households. The full cost of a medical degree in the Philippines can climb into the millions of pesos, and even candidates with outstanding academic records frequently find their options shaped more by financial access than by merit.
Government-backed programs such as the CHED MSRS are designed to close this gap, providing scholarship funding tied to a post-graduation return-service commitment. Scholars are typically required to serve in underserved public health facilities — provincial hospitals and community health centers — after completing their degrees. These are precisely the settings where the Philippines faces some of its most persistent physician shortages.
For Futalan, the CHED MSRS Program represents both a practical solution to cost barriers and a structured route into public service — one that would eventually bring her medical expertise back to the kind of provincial communities she grew up in.
Anesthesiology and Surgery in Her Sights
Now in a gap year while awaiting medical school admission decisions, Futalan has identified anesthesiology and surgery as the specializations she intends to pursue — fields that, as she has described, align with her methodical and precise approach to work.
Should she secure admission through the CHED MSRS Program and fulfill the required return-service commitment, her career trajectory would lead her directly into the public health system, addressing the chronic scarcity of physicians in underserved provincial areas that the government has long struggled to resolve.
The official documentation of her perfect NMAT score — the Examinee Report Form dated May 6, 2026, certified by the Center for Educational Measurement — stands as formal confirmation that a graduate from a local university in southern Negros Oriental has achieved the highest attainable benchmark on the national entrance examination for aspiring doctors in the Philippines.
From a science high school in Siaton to the top of the NMAT results sheet, Futalan's record represents more than a decade of sustained academic discipline, competitive engagement, and community service — a foundation she is now preparing to carry into medical school and, eventually, into a career in Philippine public health.
Source: breakingnewsnegror.com (Balita – Negros Oriental)