“It will produce competent lawyers for the needs of all our people.”
Since its inaugural examinations in 19O1 with 13 takers, the yearly Bar examinations have undergone a lot of changes. The Bar examinations are arguably one of the hardest licensure exams with an average passing average of 2O percent to 3O percent, the lowest number of passers being in 1999 with 16.59% passing rate and the highest passing rate in 2O16 with 59.O6%.
After having been postponed a few times due to COVID-19 surge, the 2020-2021 bar exams finally pushed through last February 4 and 6 under extraordinary circumstances. Only during the Second World War was the Bar exams ever postponed. And the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused similar social and economic disruption that would justify its postponement.
With the pandemic, the Supreme Court had to adapt the Bar exams to address challenges the health crisis brought. Thankfully, this year’s Bar Chair is Associate Justice Marvic Leonen- known for his digital savvy and innovative thinking as a lawyer, educator, and leader.
The most important innovation that the Supreme Court, based on Justice Leonen’s recommendation, implemented was to go for localized examinations held in key cities and regional centers nationwide. This has been a long-standing demand of deans, professors, and law students of provincial schools and finally the pandemic made a compelling case for localized testing in order to protect the safety of the examinees, proctors and everyone involved.
This arrangement should have been institutionalized years ago and should be made permanent. Centralizing the venue in a select university in Manila means added cost to examinees from the provinces, especially the poor aspirants from far-flung areas outside metro manila. Travelling and staying in Manila for the review and the whole duration of the bar exams entail considerable cost and no small amount of effort even during the best of times, not to mention the demands and pressures from the current pandemic. This arrangement considerably enhanced accessibility to the testing sites which means lesser expense to the examinees.
Bar Bulletin No. 3O 2O22 also introduced modifications to traditional modality like reducing the coverage of the exams and limiting the number of days to two. Day One would cover the Law Pertaining to the State and its Relationship with its Citizens (formerly political law, labor law and taxation) and criminal law. Day 2 will be The Law Pertaining to Private Personal and Commercial Relations (formerly civil and commercial law) and Procedure and Professional Ethics (formerly remedial and Legal Ethics and Practical Exercises).
Reducing the subjects to four the more manageable four, a stroke of genius to address specific pandemic related issues, is also a good development and be made permanent although once it is safe, it would be good to have a one-week interval between the first two and last two exams.
Asking basic questions gave premium to measure rudimentary but adequate legal knowledge. The Bar exams should not be testing people who will argue in the Supreme Court or represent the Philippines in the International Court of Justice nor the International Criminal Court. The Bar exams should not be examining whether people have the research skills to publish in the Philippine Law Journal or the Ateneo Law Journal. But the bar exams should however test the ability of a person to give legal advice to a client on a criminal or civil case and to draft basic legal documents.
Leonen’s bar exams did just that. It will produce competent lawyers for the needs of all our people. Those lawyers, if they want to become human rights or environmental justice lawyers, or corporate lawyers and top litigators, judges and justices, etc. will need to specialize and study more as well as practice in their chosen fields to get there.
Doing away with the topnotcher list is a good thing as the previous system (disclosure: I benefited from that old system, having placed third in the 1989 exams) as the new system that honors more individuals and their schools is better for society. This way, schools would shift focus away from individual excellence to school performance. This will encourage law schools to introduce deep-seated reforms and wide-ranging improvements in legal education. After all, topping the bar cannot always be equated with competence and ethical legal practice.
As a law professor for 32 years, and as someone who did well under the old system, I can say that this has certainly been the best Bar exams ever. It is unfortunate of course that it took the pandemic to get these long needed reforms in place. It is unfortunate that the 11,000 plus examinees had to deal with so many unprecedented challenges to get to the finish line. But here we are. The marathon is over and soon many of them hopefully will know the sweet taste of victory.
Congratulations bar takers of the best bar ever! Congratulations Justice Leonen, Chief Justice Alex Gesmundo, and the whole Supreme Court! Congratulations to all those who assisted the Bar Chair in getting the job done!
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