visa screen but not a board passer in her own country?

CA will not permit one to even sit for the exam without having taken and passed the NLE. That is a specific requirements of theirs now.

It is up to CGFNS as to what they want, but your friend in not going to be able to remain in the US and work since there are no visas available; so what are they going to do without having a local license? Five years and no experience is not going to make it easy to get a job, let alone a visa.

There are a lot of Philippine nurses who have US license who have not taken local boards but she will have problems if looking to adjust her status as that can not be done at the moment due to retrogression

If she did not even tried taking the NLE then she may still get a VSC for reasons of not having been registered or licensed at all.

However, even if she passed the NCLEX and able to get a VSC, there is still retrogression as everyone mentioned, so even if she has complete documents she still can't file for adjustment of status during retrogression and all she can file is the job peittion or the I-140 and many thinks that it's not a wise move just to file the I-140 w/o being able to file the AOS (I-485) concurrently or at least within a month or so after filing the I-140 and esp. if still under another non-immigrant visa such as a student visa. Just makes them a bigger target for dual-intent. Best if she consults a reputable immigration lawyer.