MAE Diane Azores of the University of Sto. Tomas-Legazpi, formerly Aquinas University, topped the 2019 Bar exams with a grade of 91.049 percent, the Supreme Court announced on Wednesday.
Azores’ schoolmate Myra Baranda landed No. 3 with a grade of 88.825 percent while University of the East graduate Princess Fatima Parahiman finished No. 2 with a grade of 89.523.
Missing from the Top 10 are perennial heavyweights from the University of the Philippines and Ateneo de Manila.
Completing the Top 10 were Dawna Fya Bandiola of San Beda College-Alabang (88.336), Jocelyn Fabello of Palawan State University (88. 263), Kenneth Glenn Manuel of University of Sto. Tomas (88.173), Rhowee Buergo of Jose Rizal University (87.871), Anton Luis Avila of Saint Louis University-Baguio (87.582), Jun Dexter Rojas of Polytechnic University of the Philippines (87. 576), and Bebelan Madera of the University of St. La Salle (87.379).
Azores, Baranda and Manuel are also accounting graduates.
Azores earned his accountancy degree at the Bicol University and passed the CPA licensure exams in 2013 along with Baranda.
“It’s really discipline and dedication. Because, I know that I really want(ed) to become a lawyer,” Azores said on radio dzMM, adding she wants to practice labor law.
“Every Bar taker’s secret dream is to be on top. Of course, you don’t want to admit it because there’s even no assurance that you’ll pass.
But I told the Lord that His will is always the best for me. Who would have thought that I’d be a CPA-lawyer. Top 1” she said in a tweet.
She aso offered advice to those who want to follow in their footsteps to never falter in the face of hardship.
“Don’t get tired studying. God will give you strength. The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth,” she said.
Manuel, who passed the CPA exams in 2014, said he could not believe that he landed in the Top 10.
“Is this real? A, I Atty. Kenneth Manuel, CPA, Top 6 of the 2019 Bar?
Hoy totoo ba ito kakagising ko lang (Hey, is this true? I just woke up). OMG,” he said on Twitter.
Manuel is a former instructor at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran where he taught Basic, Cost and Management Accounting from 2015. A consistent dean’s lister and academic scholar during his college years, Manuel was also a CPA reviewer at the Review School of Accountancy.
He said on twitter that he decided to take a social media hiatus because of his anxiety over the Bar exams result.
“I slept at 4 a.m. last night after watching Onward kasi ayaw kung hintayin ang Bar result at sobrang anxiety. I put my phone on airplane mode and I asked someone to email me the result so that I can check it on my tablet. I uninstalled all socmed apps in may tablet except for
Gmail,” he said, adding that his blood pressure shot up after waking to the examination results.
In June last year, Manuel went viral after he shared on Facebook his struggles in his four years at the UST Law School that he described as “no easy feat.”
Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta offered his congratulations to the new lawyers, saying: “Hurdling the Bar has set the stage for all of you to accomplish exceptional things. It is my hope that years from now, after you have made your mark as lawyers, you will look back on this day not only with gratitude but also with the renewed sense of commitment towards upholding truth, fairness and justice within the legal profession.”
In the 2017 Bar exams, the topnotcher came from the University of St. La Salle, Mark John Simondo, who garnered a grade of 91.05.
The No. 1 in the 2018 Bar exams, Ateneo de Manila’s student Sean James Borja, had a passing mark of 89.306.
The last time a UP graduate topped the exams was in 2015 when Rachel Angeli Miranda garnered 87.4 percent.
UP graduates have topped the exams 46 times since 1913 while Ateneo have topped the exams four times since 2010.
SC Associate Justice and 2019 Bar Exams committee chair Estela Perlas-Bernabe said 2,103 or 27.36 percent of the 7,685 examinees passed the exams. Perlas-Bernabe also said the en banc lowered the passing grade from 75 to 74.
This year’s examiners were Dean Sedfrey Candelaria and former Comelec commissioner Rene Sarmiento for political law and public international law, Dean Salvador Poquiz and former SC Justice Arturo Brion for labor law and social legislation, Court of Appeals Justice Priscilla Baltazar Padilla and Dean Cynthia del Castillo for civil law, CA Justice Japao Dimaampar and lawyer Lily Gruba for taxation, Court of Tax Appeals Justice Maria Rowena Modesto San Pedro and lawyer Francisco Lim for mercantile law, CA Justices Selma Alaras and Apolinario Bruselas Jr. for criminal law, CA Justice Maria Filomena Singh and Assistant Solicitor General Marissa Macaraeg-Guillen for remedial law and Sandiganbayan Justice Maria Theresa Mendoza Arcega and National Labor Relations Commissioner Pablo Esperitu for legal ethics and practical exercises.
The SC since the 2018 Bar has adopted the “two-examiner” policy per subject that was adopted by the en banc based on the recommendation of Perlas Bernabe, who explained that it will promote operational efficiency, especially with the increase in the number of Bar takers every year.
Under the two-examiner policy, the subject is divided into two parts and each examiner is given a specific scope to formulate the questions.
NO 2020 BAR EXAMS
The tribunal also announced the suspension of this year’s Bar exams due to the rising cases of COVID-19 in the country.
“Upon the recommendation of the 2020 Bar Examinations chairperson, and in view of the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the country, as well as the social and economic disruption caused by the pandemic and the resulting Enhanced Community Quarantine, the Supreme Court En Banc resolved to postpone the 2020 Bar Examinations,” the Bar Bulletin No. 11 series of 2020 signed by Associate Justice and 2020 Bar examinations committee chair Marvic Leonen said.
The suspension, according to the en banc, will give the SC ample time to determine the necessary adjustments and to make adequate preparations for the safe and orderly conduct of the examinations.
“The new schedule shall be announced in a separate bar bulletin by June 2020 when the current adjustments to the present pandemic becomes clearer. It shall definitely be held sometime in 2021,” it added.
And for the first time, the next Bar exams will be held not only in Manila but also in Cebu City.
“Furthermore, acting on the Bar Chairperson’s proposal for regionalization, the Supreme Court En Banc resolved that the next bar examinations shall be held in Manila and in Cebu City,” it added.
It will be recalled that in 2014, the Cebu City Council passed a resolution asking the High Court to hold the Bar examinations outside Metro Manila for those coming from the Visayas and Mindanao.
The resolution gained the support of then Senate President Franklin Drilon who said that decentralizing the holding of the Bar exams would cut the costs for examinees coming from the provinces.
Drilon also said then that while the Rules of Court has long mandated that the exams be held in Manila, the SC could rectify the matter.
Rule 138, Section 11 of the Rules of Court states that “examinations for admission to the Bar of the Philippines shall take place annually in the City of Manila.
The bar exams were held for several years at the De La Salle University campus in Taft, Manila but the SC decided to move it to the University of Sto.Tomas on Espana, Manila after DLSU ended its contract in 2010 due to several construction activities in their campus that year.
Prior to that, the Bar exams were also held at the Manuel L. Quezon University and University of the East.
SC EXPLAINS LOWER PASSING RATE
“The Court en banc has lowered the passing rate from 75 to 74 in light of the need for more young and technologically adept lawyers to help different fronts of society as we meet with the peculiar challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to the new normal,” Perlas-Bernabe said in an online statement after the magistrates completed their deliberation of the Bar exams results.
This year’s passing rate is higher than the previous two years.
In 2018, 1,800, or 22.07% of the 8,155 candidates passed while in 2017, 1, 274 out of the 6,748 examinees passed for a passing rate of 25.5 percent. In 2016, 3,747 or 59.06 percent of the 6, 344 examinees passed.
Perlas-Bernabe told the new lawyers to always adhere to the rule of law and never to stain their profession.
“To all the Bar passers, I extend to you my warmest congratulations. It is truly an extraordinary feat of which you should all be proud of. After you took your oath and sign the roll of attorneys, you will become full-pledged members of this noble profession. Always be reminded that with the distinction you gained as lawyers comes the concomitant responsibility to further the ideals of justice and the rule of law,” Perlas-Bernabe said.
“Our society, especially during this most trying times beckon you not only to become learned and experts but more so to fight for the cause
of the oppressed, to advance the pleas of the helpless, and to inspire others as a living example of integrity above all,” she added.
Perlas-Bernabe said the dates for the clearance procedure, oath taking ceremony and roll signing will be announced later.
Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, who will chair the next Bar exams, advised the new lawyers to always be humble and to strive for social justice in their practice.
“For those who will become lawyers, remember that the profession is not all that you are. Be humble. Resist greed. Learn to sacrifice. Every privilege comes with responsibility. Address inequality. Strive for social justice. Serve the people,” Leonen said in a tweet.
He also said those who failed to pass the Bar should never loss hope, adding that their time will always come.
“What may seem to you as a failure will only continue to be so if you allow it to diminish you as a human being rather than strive to learn from it. Do not be tempted by hate, anger or envy. Your time will come,” he added.
PALACE TO NEW LAWYERS: JOIN GOV’T
Malacañang reminded the newest batch of lawyers that they are expected to uphold the law and protect people’s rights at all times.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the Bar passers should never forget that “they studied law because of their ideal that the legal profession is a ‘noble profession.’”
“Lawyers pledge to uphold the law at all times and use it to protect people’s rights. I, therefore, strongly urge all to bring life to this ideal,” he said.
He also urged the new passers to consider a career in government as a means to “give back to the community for earning the privilege to practice law in the country.”
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, in his Twitter account, congratulated his “new compañeros and compañeras” whom he said should always be guided by their sense of idealism that law is a tool for justice, and that no matter what the situation is, they should uphold and protect the rule of law.
He said this year’s celebrations will be tempered by the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic but they soon would be the “frontliners in a post-COVID world as advocates of truth and partners in rebuilding.”
Nograles said it is up to the Bar passers to prove to the country that they are most worthy of being new lawyers for the Filipino people.
“You enter the legal profession at a very challenging time the country is in quarantine, our courts of justice have temporarily ceased operations, and the conduct and practice of law will surely change once we settle into an anticipated ‘new reality.’ It is your duty and obligation to find your place and define your own respective roles in this new legal and professional environment,” he said.
