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It is within the Supreme Court’s authority to adjust the passing
average of the yearly Bar Examination.
The High Tribunal spokesman, Lawyer Jose Midas
Marquez, made the clarification Tuesday following the court’s
decision to lower the 2007 exam’s passing rate from 75 to 70
percent.
“There is nothing wrong in the High Court’s
decision to lower the passing grade as the adjustment is entirely
within the court’s discretion,” Marquez said.
At the same time, Marquez announced that the
oath-taking for the country’s 1,289 new batch of lawyers will be
administered by Chief Justice Reynato Puno and laywer Ma. Christina
Layusa of the Office of the Bar Confidant on April 29. The venue
will be announced later.
Marquez explained that if the chairperson of the
2007 Bar Examinations, Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna, did not
lower the passing rate to 70 percent, only five percent of the 5,626
who took the exams would have made it.
Mercedita Ona of the Ateneo De Manila University
topped the 2007 exams with a grade of 83.55 percent, followed by
Jennifer Ong of the University of the Philippines with 83.35
percent.
Only 1,289 out of the 5,626 examinees passed the
2007 Bar Examinations, for a passing rate of only 21.91 percent. In
2006, 1,892 of the 6,187 examinees made it for a 30.6-percent
passing rate.
Because of the results of the 2007 bar exams
where the passing rate had to be lowered, House Speaker Prospero
Nograles on Tuesday urged the High Court to close down law schools
which are considered as non-performing.
Nograles said the supervision of law schools and
the practice of law in the Philippines is vested upon the Supreme
Court for it possesses the oversight powers under the 1987
Constitution.
-- William B. Depasupil and Jomar Canlas
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