The Bar isn't frat initiation

The unexpected grenade blast that climaxed the last Sunday Bar examinations on September 26 seriously injuring some 40 Bar examinees jolted a lot of sensibilities and anxieties.

The explosion triggered the imminent tragedy long in the making all these years, and gradually getting more menacing as years got by, when different law schools engaged in almost berserk so-called Bar operations. These campus rivalries had involved law fraternities, and perhaps sororities as well, practically running their respective Bar Ops of the yearly Bar exams. It had come to the point that the Manila law fraternities, would finally converge every Bar Sunday at the premises of De La Salle U campus along Taft Avenue in September.

While the obviously main purpose was to boost the morale of their Bar examinees and to help them in whatever ways - food and snacks, probable exam info, or varied research work, or so-called "tips" or "leakage", entertainment as positive "distractions" - these "bongga" inspirations in luxury came about because of stupid frat rivalry, especially over the "top ten" obsession, or biggest "national average" achievement.

But the ways these Bar operations have been carried out are of overindulgent proportions. More often, they breach propriety and more on frivolity, more on drinking and ribaldry and, edging toward wild orgy. In fact, on that fateful Sept. 26 Sunday just after the Bar exams, and after the grenade exploded, among the on-the-scene evidence littering with the 40 injured examinees, were broken beer bottles and similar drinks.

For four Sundays in September, raucous frats with different gimmicks and gadgets in creating din or noise - hardly any music, more with complete fetish for pandemonium. There were more of fraternal voodoos than the boosting of fraternal spirit, and boisterous babel of drum-and-bugle brass sound bytes, less as a gig of melodious symphony music that eases the mind from mental stress.

How could such raucous atmosphere be conducive to peace of mind for learning or knowledge retention? Have the school authorities, the law school deans, among others, not ever realized over these years, that the one thing their Bar examinees need foremost before and during the time of testing is quiet? Physical silence and peace of mind!

One understands the changing "correct" culture of the youth who might sneer at their elders' purported wisdom and experience. And to them, having Bar Ops, like, putting up a gig of drum-and-bugle sonorous-bytes synchronized by bottles of beer taken at the exam site, is the epitome of propriety in passing the Bar..

This dig is not unintended. It has come to a point that the odd positioning of priorities has gone awkward and askew. For instance, while the preoccupation or obsession of the youth to revive the Greek-lettered fraternities in their time, they should not forget their main vision or ambition.

Perhaps, it's only some two decades, or less, when these law frat wars were waged, particularly in their Bar Ops, that this insanity has taken sway. And it's not necessary to call a stop to this inanity. At the risk of irking the Supreme Court which has been put to a grinding shame now, why doesn't the Court gather their collective nuts for a change? Another Bar matter, La Salle U campus along the Taft Avenue "river", has long become "off-limits" as Bar Exams site, forecasts the La Niña.

And it's not improbable that the grenade blaster could be a serious lawyer wannabe who in the four Sundays, could have been badly and desperately affected by the raucous and confusing environment, and who might have lost hope of passing. Who knows?

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