RESULTS of the 2020/2021 Bar examinations will be released on April 12 while oath taking will be held on May 2, the Supreme Court said yesterday.
SC spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka advised examinees to wait for updates if they can go to the court’s compound on Padre Faura, Manila to wait for the results, as practiced before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The tribunal, in a media briefer, said 2020/2021 Bar exams Committee chairperson, Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, asked for a special en banc session on April 12 “for the purpose of considering his report on the first-ever digitalized and regionalized Bar examinations and the release of its results.”
Hosaka, asked if the results will be released after the special en banc, said “the release is on April 12 once the results, as per the report of the Bar Chair, are approved by the Court En Banc.”
Earlier, the SC said despite the COVID-19 pandemic, 11,378 examinees or 96.5 percent of 11,790 applicants took the first day of the exams in 31 testing sites in 22 local government units nationwide.
A total of 219 examinees were not able to take the Bar after they tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. A number of Bar examinees were also disqualified for violating policies posted by the Office of the Bar Chairperson and their Honor Code, such as entering local testing centers without disclosing they previously tested positive for COVID-19.
There are also those who smuggled mobile phones inside examination rooms or accessed social media during lunch break inside the premises of the testing centers.
During previous Bar examinations, the number of examinees who took the tests dwindled from Day One as some opted to not take the examinations any further for various reasons.
The SC initially set the exams for November 2021 but deferred it to January 16, 23 and 30 due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. The exams were again deferred to February 4 and 6 this year, also due to the surge in COVID-19 cases after the holiday season.
The 2020/2021 Bar exams introduced a lot of firsts for the history of the Philippine Bar being the first digital exams, first to conduct exams outside of Metro Manila, and the first time that the tests were conducted for only two days instead of the usual four Sundays of November.
The duration of the exam coverage was also shortened.
