Mindanao university ordered to close law programs

MANILA, Philippines — The Legal Education Board (LEB) has ordered the Mindanao State University to close its law programs in all its campuses starting academic year 2025-2026 after it approved a resolution canceling MSU’s accreditation.

The order stemmed from MSU’s refusal to recognize LEB’s supervisory authority and for asserting that it is not bound by the board’s orders, policies and guidelines on legal education.

“The MSU is no longer authorized to offer the basic law program in the country,” the LEB said.

The board made permanent the cease and desist order it issued against MSU’s extension law programs on its campuses in Tawi-Tawi, Sulu and Maguindanao.

It expressed concern over what it described as MSU’s “dismal” performance in the Bar examinations, noting the school’s passing rate since 2013 has been below the national passing percentage.

“The LEB cannot permit aspiring lawyers to continue enrolling at MSU, and invest their time, effort and resources in an education whose fitness to operate has not been assessed by the LEB,” it said.

The board said that while the Bar exam is not the only measure of a law school’s fitness to operate, it is the only “tangible and independent” evidence it could rely on since the university has refused to submit to its supervision.

Reacting to the LEB’s resolution, the MSU said it would continue to operate in accordance with its chapter passed by Congress in 1955.

“The LEB cannot act now as Congress and amend the MSU Charter by ordering the closure of its law programs,” it said.

The university said it was surprised by the LEB’s evaluation of its quality of education based on the Bar exams alone.

It said that MSU performs better than several, if not numerous, legal education institutions under LEB supervision.

The university said the decision of the LEB would deprive Muslim youth of access to law education.

“MSU will not allow this to happen as it will wreak havoc in Muslim Mindanao and destroy the gains of MSU’s decades of peace-building in the discharge of its trilogy of functions of instruction, research and extension,” it said.