Bacoleño nurse tops 2017 Bar exams
BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental – A nursing graduate is now a topnotch lawyer. For Mark John Simondo, a nursing graduate in 2009, it was hard to find a job related to his course in the country. Nurses were more in demand abroad, so taking up law was his option while he elected to stay in the Philippines.
“I don’t want to go abroad to work; it should only be here in the Philippines. That is why I looked for a course that would allow me to have a career and stay here,” Simondo told The Manila Bulletin.
After law school at the University of St. La Salle, here, all he wanted was to pass the Bar.
It was beyond his expectations to top the examinations for 2017 with an overall rating of 91.05 percent.
“I cried when I saw the announcement. In four Sundays of November that I took the exams, I was not confident if I did well or even pass it,” said the 31year-old bachelor.
But his friends and teachers are not that surprised since he graduated valedictorian in law last year at the university that had been his school since kindergarten.
He graduated nursing as Magna Cum Laude in 2009 before enrolling Law in 2012.
In the years in between, Simondo practiced being a nurse intermittently at different private hospitals in the city. 1st in the family Being the first lawyer in the family, Simondo said he is thankful to God for giving him signs that led him to this point of his life.
His father Noli, 56, a police officer, and mother Edith, 53, who is in the United States taking care of his elderly grandmother, could not be prouder.
He said his younger brother Michael, also took up nursing and graduated last 2011. But just like him, Michael took a different path and is now a firefighter at the Bureau of Fire Protection.
Simondo also thanked his girlfriend, family and his school for their support and help they gave to him.
Advice Simondo urged aspiring lawyers to remain steadfast in their pursuit and never give up.
He said it took him five years to study law, partly to avoid stress on taking up too many subjects.
He admitted having hesitations at first, but later committed to it.
“If you are in the law school, you do your best and always pursue,” he said.
He said he is yet to decide on what field of law he would specialize in, but would like to take it easy and enjoy the moment of his passing the Bar.
Simondo said he would reflect on his specialization one month before his oathtaking on June 1.