UV grads aged 73 and 58 pass the Bar
She was already an engineer and was holding an important position in a water distribution company. He, on the other hand, was already a doctor.
But Engr. Glenda Ponce, 58, and Dr. Napoleon Ranario, 73, proved that learning knows no age and that age is definitely just a number.
Ponce and Ranario were among the 8,241 passers of the recent 2020/21 Bar Examinations.
Ponce, who is the manager of Metropolitan Cebu Water District, has been harboring a dream of becoming a lawyer for many years.
It was her daughter, Nicole Ann Ponce, who revealed that her mother had passed the tedious Bar, which had been postponed several times due to the pandemic. Incidentally, Nicole also passed the same Bar Exam, alongside her mother.
“In her early 50s, Mama decided to pursue her dream of becoming a lawyer. I remember how she would get home late after long hours in law school and working full time during the day. On top
of that, she raised four strongwilled, stubborn children who did not make life easy. And yet she thrived. Our greatest role model. Our lighthouse,” Nicole wrote in a Facebook post.
“Today, we celebrate our mama Glena and all the DREAMERS who refuse to give up on their dreams. It’s never too late. And you are never too old (or too young). Go get that degree whatever or whatever it is your heart desires the most,” she added.
Glenda finished law at the University of the Visayas while Nicole at the University of San Carlos.
Meanwhile, Ranario was already a doctor before he became a lawyer.
Ranario took up medicine at the University
of the Philippines Diliman and practiced in the USA, according to one of his high school classmates.
When he retired, Ranario went to law school while teaching at Gullas School of Medicine.
Right after passing the Bar, the UV College of Law has also offered him a teaching job for Ranario.
UV produced nearly 70 passers in the last Bar.
It was the first time in the history of the Bar Examinations in the country that the exams were digitized and regionalized. The exams were administered using a software and accessed digitally by takers in various testing centers in across the Philippines.