How Law schools produce Bar topnotchers
On November 5, 12, 19, and 26 more than 7,000 Law graduates will take the Bar. There shall be eight subjects, two per Sunday. It will be very difficult with a passing rate ranging from 20 to 30 percent. I don't believe last year's passing rate will ever be duplicated. It was once in a lifetime to have a passing rate higher than 50 percent. When I took the Bar, it was only 20 percent or so. This year's chairman is Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin, a Bar topnotcher from UE where I have taught Law for decades now. He is strict but fair, no-nonsense, and very competent in law and jurisprudence.
He has been my fellow faculty member in UST, UE and many Law schools and Bar review centers. We are even neighbors and I am supposed to be ninong to his daughter, but I respect him with distant awe. Thus, I warn those taking the Bar to polish their English, hone their mastery of the law and decided cases, be careful with their handwriting, and be good in their logic, syntax, spelling, grammar, and their power of expression. I predict the Bar will make many barristers cry, bewilder the unprepared aspirants, vex the less-serious candidates, and surprise the neglectful, inept, and lazy Law graduates. Mark my words; I feel this shall be one of the most difficult.
So how do Law schools prepare their candidates? Let us go higher than that, how do they prepare probable topnotchers? Well, the most competent witness would be the University of San Carlos dean, Silliman University dean, and University of Cebu dean, my good friend, Dodong Eztenzo. After all, they demonstrated that the impossible is now possible with Cebu-based Law schools. In the old days, UV and USJ-R also produced topnotchers and maybe their glory days are back. Even SWU and USP and the other Law schools in Cebu may pull a surprise.
Last year's Bar exams established many precedents. Aside from having the highest passing rate in the last 50 years, it also marked the first time in history that Law schools outside Luzon dominated, and for the first time, no Manila-based Law school made the top ten. In 1968, for the first time in history, a Boholano, Oscar Globasa from the University of Bohol topped the Bar, the first graduate of a Law school outside Manila to do this. This year, the challenges to Cebu Law schools are tremendous; how to repeat that landmark achievement. But then again, we can never tell if good fortune comes twice in a row, or even more. Let's keep our fingers crossed.