The Bar

It’s that time of the year again. And no, I am not (yet) referring to Christmas. Tomorrow marks the start of the legal profession’s annual mental hazing ritual — the 2012 Bar Examinations. 5,686 barristers will be trooping to the hopefully flood-free UST campus along España for the next four Sundays to tackle the traditional eight subjects: Political and International Law, Labor and Social Legislation, Civil Law, Taxation, Mercantile or Commercial Law, Criminal Law, Remedial or Procedural Law, and Legal Ethics and Practical Exercises.

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La Naval de Manila: Parenthetically, tomorrow also happens to be the feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary (a.k.a., Our Lady of La Naval) so our barristers will have another intercessor to go to. By way of a brief history lesson, in 1571, Catholic forces decisively defeated the Ottoman Turks threatening Christian Europe in the Battle of Lepanto supposedly through the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary. This devotion to her rapidly spread all over Spain and was then brought by the Dominican friars to our shores.

The original statue of Our Lady that was carved in 1593 by a Chinese artisan (who later converted to Catholicism) is now enshrined at Santo Domingo Church, Quezon City (where Senator Ninoy Aquino lay in state in 1983). The image is considered the oldest ivory carving in the Philippines.

In 1646, 18 Dutch warships tried to invade the country. With only two merchant galleons, the combined Spanish and Filipino forces were obviously mismatched (Note that in his “La Naval de Manila” column yesterday, Ambeth Ocampo presented a more expansive description of these events. There are differences in respect of certain facts presented herein. However, the credible historian Mr. Ocampo is, I wish to defer to his version.) Before each of the five battles, the crew members were believed to have sought the help of Our Lady and even vowed that if they emerged triumphant, they would make a pilgrimage to the image — barefoot. As the saying goes, the rest is history.

The procession in honor of Our Lady is scheduled for October 14 so our barristers should prepare their umbrellas and tsinelas as this is traditionally a rain-drenched activity.

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Marian ball: Coincidentally, the first game of the UAAP Men’s basketball best of three championship will also be played today between two “Marian” schools. The Dominican Holy Rosary-inspired UST Growling Tigers will be going up against the Jesuit October medal-clad Ateneo Blue Eagles. The latter is aiming for a five-peat but it was the former that denied them the championship in 2006.

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Exam Format: The experimentation in respect of the right examination format continues. Last year’s chairman, Justice Roberto Abad (acknowledged by many as the father of the modern day bar exam) introduced the multiple choice questions and the writing of legal opinions and trial memoranda. These changes were seen as steps in the right direction as MCQs are not only the norm in other professional board exams but test a candidate’s precision and accuracy as well qualities that are imperative in any lawyer. Moreover, the preparation of legal documents constitutes the “bread and butter” of lawyering — a real world skill that every lawyer must possess.

The 2012 bar chairperson, Justice Martin Villarama Jr., further tweaked the format. The exam for each subject shall now be composed of 60% MCQs and 40% essay questions. The latter, together with this year’s schedule as well as the relative weights given to each subject, to determine a candidate’s general coverage, present a return to past practice. However, in partial conformity to last year’s innovations, the practical exercises portion of the last Sunday’s exam will be in the form of a Trial Memorandum Writing Test. The Bar Confidante’s Office under Atty. Cristina Layusa is currently soliciting comments and suggestions from law deans, professors and other stakeholders as to the format they prefer.

Interestingly, the “bar” month has been shifting among the “ber” months. Two years ago (and for several years before that), the exam was held in September. Last year, it was conducted in November while this 2012, it is being administered in October. The venue has also moved from one flood prone area to another — DLSU Taft to UST. Rains notwithstanding, the law deans and professors are looking forward to the warm hospitality and the usual lavish, sumptuous buffet hosted by UST dean Nilo Divina.

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Phl v. US: The first Philippine Bar exam was held in 1900 with 13 examinees. In the US, the first exam was conducted by Delaware in 1763. In the Philippines, the exam is administered by the Supreme Court while in the US, it is usually the State bar association that runs the process.

The bar exam in most US States is typically two days long as distinguished from our four-day ordeal. A typical US exam consists of two parts. The first part is the standardized Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) which contains 200 MCQs covering six subjects, distributed as follows: Constitutional Law (31), Contracts (33), Criminal Law and Procedure (31), Evidence (31), Real Property (31), and Torts (33).

The MBE is divided into three-hour morning and afternoon sessions with 100 questions tackled in each session. Since this is a standardized test, it is administered twice a year on the same day across the United States, usually the last Wednesdays in February and July.

The second part contains the essay questions which covers general legal principles as well as the peculiar nuances of the State law where the candidate wishes to be admitted to. In this regard, it is interesting to note that our tweaked 2012 format is similar to its US counterpart.

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Greetings: Birth anniversary best wishes to Ateneo high school class ’82 valedictorian Gary Castillo who now works with Chevron Philippines and 7-Eleven chief honcho, Victor Paterno.

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“And God said: ‘let there be Satan, so people don’t blame everything on me. And let there be lawyers, so people don’t blame everything on Satan’.” — George Burns

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