MORE than 11,000 aspiring lawyers showed up yesterday for the first day of the 2025 Bar examinations, Supreme Court Associate Justice and 2025 Bar Exams committee chairperson Amy Lazaro-Javier said.
This year’s Bar examinations will be held for three days, the first day being September 7. The next examination date is on September 10, and the last on September 14.
In a press briefing, Lazaro-Javier said the 11,437 takers represent 86.7 percent of the 13,193 applicants for this year’s examinations.
She said the number included 5,215 first-time takers; 4,239 repeaters; and 1,985 refreshers.
She also said that 241 of the Bar examinees are persons with disabilities
Also among the Bar examinees are 241 persons with disabilities, 206 senior citizens, 41 pregnant women, and 139 with medical conditions.
Lazaro-Javier also said that female examinees outnumbered their male counterparts, with 6,673 women taking the Bar exams compared to 4,764 men.
She said this is consistent with a pattern that the SC has observed in the legal profession in the country.
“In law school, there are more females. And our Bar passers-in-law also have more females. And in the trial court, you know, maybe 60 percent of the judges are women,” she said.
In last year’s Bar examinations, she noted that 6,108 women also showed up for the first day of the examination compared to 4,375 men.
To recall, Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, in his speech during the Women’s Month Celebration in March this year, said that “women now comprise over half of the sitting judges in the trial courts at 56 percent.”
Gesmundo also said that in appellate courts, women justices account for 77 percent in the Court of Tax Appeals, 45 percent in the Court of Appeals, and 35 percent in the Sandiganbayan.
In a related development, the SC said the New Era University in Metro Manila registered the most number of examinees with 1,698; followed closely by the University of San Jose-Recoletos in Cebu with 1,264; and Saint Louis University in Baguio City with 1,253.
Meanwhile, San Beda University (Manila) had 874 examinees, while San Beda College – Alabang and University of Santo Tomas reported 764 and 704 examinees, respectively.
The other testing centers were the Mindanao State University (Iligan City), University of Nueva Caceres (Naga), University of the Philippines-BGC (Taguig), Central Philippine University (Iloilo City), Ateneo Law School (Makati), Dr. V. Orestes Romualdez Educational Foundation (Tacloban City), Manila Adventist College (Pasay City), and Ateneo de Davao (Davao).
The University of Sto. Tomas is the national headquarters for the Bar examinations this year.
DIGITAL BAR EXAMS
Meanwhile, Lazaro-Javier said the SC will not revert to the traditional “pen-to-paper” format in next year’s Bar exams, and instead, they will maintain the current digitalized and regionalized Bar exams format for the next three years.
”Our commitment and the resolution of the Court is that within the next three years, the bar will be the same. No new rules,” she said.
The SC approved the historic shift to the digitalized, localized, and proctored format in the 2021 Bar exams.
