Knight Grand Officer of Rizal, Knights of Rizal

The Philippine bar exams

The results of the 2007 bar exams have just been released by the Supreme Court. Three schools that usually provide bar topnotchers again landed in the top ten: Ateneo de Manila, University of the Philippines (UP) and San Beda College.

They were joined by the University of San Carlos, the University of Nueva Caceres, San Sebastian College, Ateneo de Davao and the University of Cebu.

No matter the denials, I am inclined to believe that topping the Philippine bar exams has always been the dream, and the drive, of law students and their alma maters. Law students are invariably pressed, from the beginning to their last day in law school, to prepare for the bar exams. The first 10 slots in the bar exams and the highest law-school passing rates, after all, make for good public perception of the excellence of a law school.

This mindset appears to be fed not simply by the competition among schools, their students and alumni. The history of Philippine bar topnotchers provides a cartography of what, in the public imagination, appears to be success in life. And the perception, borne of that history, may well be driving the competitive spirit that makes the bar exams, and the release of the results by the Supreme Court, an institution of substantial public expectation and media focus.

Consider the following. Of the 14 presidents of the Philippines, seven were lawyers, all bar topnotchers. They were Manuel L. Quezon (fourth place, 1903), Sergio Osmeña (second place, 1903), Jose P. Laurel (second place, 1915), Manuel Roxas (first place, 1913), Carlos P. Garcia (seventh place, 1923), Diosdado Macapagal (first place, 1936) and Ferdinand Marcos (first place, 1939).

Another seven bar topnotchers became Chief Justices of the Supreme Court. These included Roberto Concepcion (fist place, 1924), Claudio Teehankee (first place, 1940), Pedro Yap (first place, 1946), Ricardo Paras (second place, 1913), Andres Narvasa (second place, 1951), Jose Yulo (third place, 1913) and Artemio Panganiban (sixth place, 1960).

Senate presidents who were bar topnotchers included, besides Quezon and Marcos, the following: Arturo Tolentino (second place, 1934), Jovito Salonga (first place, 1944), Neptali Gonzales (ninth place, 1949), Ernesto Maceda (10th place, 1956), and Franklin Drilon (third place, 1969).

In the Lower House, the list includes former House Speakers Osmena and Yulo. They have now been joined by the incumbent, Prospero Nograles, who was No. 2 in 1971.

Bar topnotchers Lorenzo Sumulong (first place, 1929), Jose Diokno (first place, 1944) and Rene V. Saguisag (sixth place, 1963) were elected senators.

Their counterparts in the House include Aguedo F. Agbayani (fifth place, 1947), Antonio Nachura (seventh place, 1967), Arturo Brion (1st place, 1974) and Gilberto C. Teodoro Jr. (first place, 1989). Ronaldo Zamora, who remains a member of the House, placed first in 1969.

Bar topnotchers also thrive in the private sector, academe and the career civil service. Big law firms attract topnotchers. Among them are Manuel Montecillo (first place, 1948) and Arlene Maneja (first place, 2002) of Siguion Reyna Montecillo and Ongsiako; Manuel S. Abello (first place, 1958), Avelino V. Cruz (first place, 1962), Victor P. Lazatin (third place, 1972) and Patricia-Ann Prodigalidad (first place, 1996) of Accralaw; and Rey C. Espinosa (first place, 1982), Rodolfo Ma. Ponferrada (first place, 2001) and Joan A. de Venecia (first place, 2005) of SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan.

The groves of academe also flourish with bar topnotchers. Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ (ninth place, 1962), a former president of Ateneo de Manila and is dean emeritus of its College of Law. Virgilio B. Jara (fith place, 1962) and Cesar L. Villanueva (second place, 1981) are law deans, respectively, of San Beda and Ateneo de Manila.

Many topnotchers are law professors and bar reviewers, enabling top law schools to maintain excellent faculty members. This tends to further feed the perception that topnotchers make it good.

In addition to its roster of bar topnotchers, the passing rate of a law school adds to its reputation. The passing rate of a school is the proportion of the total number of its bar passers in relation to the total number of its bar examinees.

Wikipedia’s Philippine Bar Examination monograph (March 2008) lists the following schools (with more than 30 examinees) as having the highest bar passing rates: San Beda College of Law (85-percent to 95-percent passing rate), Ateneo de Manila Law School (80- percent to 95-percent passing rate) and the UP College of Law (60 percent to 75 percent passing rate).

Of schools with 30 or less bar examinees, Ateneo de Davao College of Law and the University of Perpetual Help-Rizal College of Law each post a 50-percent to 80-percent passing rate.

Among the law schools in the country which have produced first placers are UP, Ateneo de Manila, San Beda, University of Sto. Tomas, Far Eastern University, the University of the Cordilleras, Manuel L. Quezon University, University of the East, Divine Word College, Philippine Law School, the University of Manila College of Law and the Manila Law College Foundation.

UP holds the plum banner with 49 first placers since the exams began in 1913. With the addition of Mercedita Ona, the 2007 first placer, Ateneo de Manila now has 19. San Beda has six.

The University of the Cordilleras recently created a pleasant stir when two of its law graduates placed first within eight years of each other. Janet B. Abuel topped the bar in 1998, reprised eight years later in 2006 by Noel Neil Malimban. This indicates the widening availability of good law education beyond Manila. It is a welcome development that is reenforced by the strong performances in the 2007 bar exams of the University of San Carlos, the University of Nueva Caceres, the Ateneo de Davao and the University of Cebu.   

In the annals of Philippine bar examinations, Florenz D. Regalado of San Beda holds the distinction of scoring the highest general average of 96.7 percent. He was first placer in the 1954 bar exams and rose to become associate justice of the Supreme Court.

The 2001 bar examinations proved to be unique in the highly competitive world of topping the bar. Valedictorians carry a load of expectations, and pressures can be heavy. That year, UP’s valedictorian Rodolfo Ponferrada not only received 100-percent grades in two of the most difficult bar subjects, Remedial Law and Criminal Law, but raced to first place far in advance of the pack. His general average was 93.80 percent, well ahead of Ateneo de Manila’s valedictorian, Jesus Paolo Protacio, who came second at 90.05 percent, and San Beda’s valedictorian, Adonis V. Gabriel, who placed eighth with 88.25 percent.

A Committee of Bar Examiners is appointed by the Supreme Court to conduct and grade the bar exams and release the results. They have a one-year term. The chairman is an incumbent justice of the Supreme Court while the members, a tightly guarded secret, are members of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

The bar exams are the only professional licensure exams in the Philippines conducted not by the Professional Regulation Commission but by the Supreme Court.

Landing in the top 10 of the bar exams is not the absolute template against which to measure the quality of a law school. Top law students in the United States, for instance, are more competitive about landing in the editorial boards of their respective Law Reviews and in getting clerkships with eminent justices of both state and federal courts than in worrying about landing in the top three of their bar exams.

And there are other measures like the quality of faculty, research, library, student-body composition, endowments and programs that contribute immensely to the making and reputation of a good law school.

While topping the bar exams certainly offers the successful candidates more choices at the beginning of their careers, that, by itself, does not guarantee a good life downstream. For as long, however, as perception continues to regard the top 10 results of the bar exams as such a template, so long also will the spirit of the law schools and their students continue to work toward that goal.

“Non schola sed vita discimus,” an old Latin saying goes. “We do not learn for school, but for life.”

Our law students and their schools, in their drive to top the bar exams, must not forget that the greater struggle is topping the bar of life. 

Dr. Trillana placed second in the bar exams in 1966. He graduated from San Beda College.

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Dr. Pablo S. Trillana III: The Philippine bar exams

The results of the 2007 bar exams have just been released by the Supreme Court. Three schools that usually provide bar topnotchers again landed in the top ten: Ateneo de Manila, University of the Philippines (UP) and San Beda College.