SC: Next Bar exams not earlier than February 2021
MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court on Monday announced that the 2020 Bar examinations, postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be held no earlier than February 2021.
“Due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases, the prevailing community quarantine protocols all over the nation, and the continuing uncertainty, the SC En Banc, upon the recommendation of the 2020 Bar Examinations Chairperson, resolved to announce the schedule of the next Bar Examinations to a later date to allow time for a more considered deliberation,” the latest Bar bulletin, signed by Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, read.
Leonen is the 2020 Bar Examinations chair.
He however said that the next Bar examinations “will definitely not be held at a date earlier than February 2021.”
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Bar exams are traditionally held during the four Sundays of November each year. But the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine protocols enforced across the country to curb its spread pushed back the conduct of the exams.
The next Bar exams will also be held in Manila and Cebu City, the first time that the licensure exam will be conducted outside the nation’s capital.
Leonen, in his keynote address at the 2019 Bar oath-taking, said he received a go signal to look into pilot testing a computerized Bar.
The next Bar chair also said he would want to make Bar practices “more reasonable.” Leonen told the would-be lawyers that the Bar is just a “qualifying examination” that will “not measure your worth as a person.”
Leonen, a former law dean, said he will propose a pass-or-fail system for the next Bar exams.
The coronavirus pandemic also forced the SC to announce the 2019 Bar passers online rather than traditionally opening their grounds for the list of successful Bar takers. It also held the historic online oath-taking for the country’s new lawyers.
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