Record-breaking bar exam a giveaway?

The Philippines’ 3,747 new lawyers (the most since 1901) trooped to the Supreme Court in batches during the last nine working days (May 22-June 2) to sign the Roll of Attorneys marking their formal entry into the noble profession of law amid razzing and ribbing that they passed a “giveaway” exam.

Normal and reasonable. However, Supreme Court (SC) Justice Presbitero J. Velasco Jr., the hardworking chair of the 2016 bar test, was quick to defend them. Though the passing percentage of 59.05 is “the highest in history based on the passing grade of 75 percent as prescribed by Rule 138” of the Rules of Court, and though the top 10 places were monopolized by graduates of non-Metro Manila schools, the bar questions and grading system were neither easy nor substandard.

He explained that the questions were “designed not only to test the bar candidates’ knowledge of the law but more importantly, to measure their facility of expression, logic, quantitative reasoning, and problem-solving. The thrust … was to find out if the bar candidates can marshal facts, laws and jurisprudence, and explain themselves articulately. The examiners were not looking for formulaic answers, as there can never be one… As long as the answers were logical, convincing, presented in readable English, and legally defensible, they merited points even though they may not exactly echo prevailing jurisprudence.”

To assess Velasco’s evaluation, I looked at the list of examiners and found them formidable and brilliant in their respective fields, further proving that the exam wasn’t a “giveaway” — Retired SC Justice Eduardo Nachura (political law), new SC Justice Noel Tijam (remedial law), Court of Appeals Justices Magdangal de Leon (labor law), Japar Dimaampao (civil law), Ramon Hernando (mercantile law), Victoria Isabel Paredes (criminal law), Myra Garcia-Fernandez (legal ethics) and Court of Tax Appeals Justice Lovell Bautista (taxation).

Serve the provinces. Noting that most of the passers hail from the provinces, Velasco urged them to “always contribute a piece of yourself to our country, and to its people who need your services … to serve and benefit the marginalized, the oppressed, and the less privileged.” Echoing this message, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno was equally effusive, stressing “the need for greater access to justice for our fellowmen who are cash-challenged, distance-disadvantaged and information-deprived.”

She exclaimed, “You in Mindanao, tell the Court what Mindanaoan problems are in all their complexity and tell us how we should make courts and procedures work for Mindanao. You in the Visayas, enable us to devise solutions so that our courts allow people to live full lives despite the pendency of litigation without undue burden to your communities. You in the rest of Luzon, tell us how to make courts more accessible in the hinterlands of the Cordilleras, in the rising cities of Luzon, as well as in the congested cities of Metro Manila…”

Great lawyers. “We need lawyers who will not back down from serving the rule of law even at great personal cost,” the Chief Justice continued. “We need lawyers who will not bend to pressures to set the law aside in favor of expediency. We need lawyers committed to justice for all; dedicated to equal rights for the oppressed and disenfranchised; lawyers who serve where the need is greatest; lawyers who contribute to the conversation not only of their local community but to the national conversation as well, of how we might better serve our people.”

She concluded with this exhortation: “Great lawyers, like brilliant diamonds, form under the most crushing of pressures and the most terrible of conditions. For greatness lies not in what one chooses to do when one’s paths are easy. Greatness is proven when someone is confronted with dark and difficult ways—but forges ahead anyway to find the light. It is not on the mountaintops of grandeur and glory that greatness shines. It is in the valleys of the shadow of death, in the grit and dirt of the battle trenches. It is in your utmost extremity, when you find yourself overwhelmed by darkness, but continue to hold fast to your principles, that you blaze the brightest.”

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