Out of the 5,903 law graduates who took the 2009 bar exams in the Philippines, only 1,451 passed while 4,452 didn’t, for a total passing rate of 24.58 per cent.
The latest passing rate may already be considered low since the bar exams is considered one of the toughest in the land, but it’s still higher compared to the passing rate in the 2008 bar exams which was only 20.58 per cent.
There has been a delay in the announcement of the full list of successful examinees. While the Supreme Court said it will post the bar exam results at 6 p.m. today, March 26, the announcement was moved to 7 p.m., then 8 pm and 8:30. It still wasn’t available at 10 p.m. tonight.
A San Beda law grad, Reinier Paul Yebra, is this year’s topnotcher with a score of 84.88, followed by another Bedan, Charlene Mae Tapic (84.60) on the second place. Rounding out the Top 10 examinees are the following new lawyers from Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) and the University of the Philippines.
3. John Paul Lim, ADMU (84.50)
4. Caroline Lagos, UP (84.40)
5. Eric David Tan, ADMU (84.05)
6. Yves-Randolph Gonzalez,ADMU (83.90)
7. Joan Mae To, ADMU (83.65)
8. Herminio Bagro III, UP (83.40)
9. Timothy Joseph Lumauig, ADMU (83.20)
10. Naealla Rose Bainto, ADMU (83.10); and
Sheila Abigail Go, ADMU (83.10)
Complete list of 2009 bar results passers can be found here:
via inquirer.net
via gmanews.tv
In California, they never publish the names of the top examinees in the bar exam. In fact, they do not even publish the names of the successful examinees. The examinees are notified via mail how they did. Probably this practice is less cruel to the unsuccessful.
Twenty-five percent passing rate is a killer! Either the law schools do not know how to teach or the exam is designed to make it impossible for most of the law graduates to practice law. Something is wrong here. Fifty percent, more or less, passing rate is probably more close to the ideal.
Kawawa naman yun mga students who sacrificed their their time and their parent’s money to find out that their best option is to be a glorified legal clerk after all their years of legal study.
Somehow I agree with you Bert. It can be a nervewracking experience for someone to go through four rigorous years of law school and then not pass, and some even take the bar two, three times. There are lots of harrowing stories out there. But then again, there are already too many lawyers (and law students). This is something that should be looked into by our legislative, policy-making bodies on education…. like what they did cracking the whip on nursing schools which have turned into diploma mills. 😉
thing of it is, some schools educate their students on how to become practitioners already and does not really focus on the prep for the bar until bar examinations time (which if you ask me isnt really enough time to do so)… not that i’m saying that their method is wrong. each schools just have their own way of educating their soon-to-be lawyers
also, i think the SC examiners designed the exam to be hard to know who really deserve to be called lawyers and those who are better off next time. can you imagine if our society would be filled with so-so or not so competent practitioners of law? innocent people can go to jail or guilty ones may be acquitted. not everybody is fit for this profession even though some (if not a lot) would kill to be in it but this cannot always be the case.. we’d be a nation of square pegs in round holes 🙂
bertN, if you go over the passing percentage of every school offering the legal profession, you can easily determine which schools have been doing good. based on my personal experience, the school may help you a lot. If you look at those schools with high percentage of examinees making it, these are the schools which kept on pressuring their students to study. there would be everyday recitations in classrooms and its very rare to see teachers actually teaching students. its more on teacher asking questions to students. but at the end of the day, it would depend on the student himself/herself. i have many friends who graduated from schools with very low passing percentage but they still made it. when i asked them how did they do it, they just said that instead of their school pressuring them, they pressure themselves to study.
most of the examinees who failed are those who did not take their studies seriously. most of them just studied seriously during the review classes. although some are lucky enough to make it, the risk of failing is greater for them.
there is an impression that we have many lawyers now, but this is a wrong perception. in the last bar exam, the number of lawyers in the roll of attorneys in the philippines is just around 59,000(more or less), and half of those died already, and some are not practicing lawyer..imagine our population 90 million and there are only 20 thousand practicing lawyer, can you call it many?
I want to say congratulations TO THOSE WHO’VE PASSED THE BAR EXAM … Wonderful!!!!!.. Yes, We must admit the fact that we need lawyers in our country..but somehow some of these lawyers didn’t have concern in their client…And for them money is important…I hope lawyers will truly see the lights..!!!!