BY EVANGELINE DE VERA
THE Supreme Court today will post the
results of the 2007 bar examinations.
SC spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said the
results were supposed to have been released yesterday but the
Court, in an en banc session, granted the request of the
Office of the Bar Confidant (OBC) for ample time to decode the
numbers assigned to each of the 5,626 examinees.
Marquez said that every year, the Court
receives requests for re-checking, especially from those who
flunked.
He said the Court does not normally
entertain or allow such requests unless there are strong
arguments for re-checking.
Marquez said they expect the decoding to be
finished by noon today.
He said the list of names will be displayed
on LCD projectors at the front yard of the SC near the Padre
Faura entrance. The results can also be viewed at
www.supremecourt.gov.ph.
Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna, chair of
the 2007 committee on bar examinations, will hold a press
briefing before the release of the results.
Sources said that some of the examinees
were children of SC Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr.;
Court of Appeals Justices Remedios Salazar-Fernando, Lucenito
Tagle, Mariflor Castillo; Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez; and
Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño.
Based on the figures of the OBC, 5,626
graduates from 109 law schools took the exams held on the four
Sundays of September 2007 at the De La Salle University in
Manila. A total of 6,187 examinees took the 2006 bar exams.
The 2007 bar exams also marked the third
time that the "five-strike" rule was implemented.
This rule limits to five the maximum number
of times a candidate may take the exams.
Three-time flunkers may take the fourth and
fifth examinations upon successfully completing a one-year
refresher course for each examination.
The Rules of Court provide that "a
candidate may be deemed to have passed his examination
successfully if he has obtained a general average of 75
percent in all subjects without falling below 50 percent in
any subject."
Noel Neil Q. Malimban of the University of
the Cordilleras, formerly Baguio Colleges Foundation, topped
the 2006 bar exams with an average of 87.60 percent.
Only 1,893 or 30 percent of the 6,187 who took the exams in
2006 passed.
