The Long Wait

The Philippine Bar Examinations is undoubtedly the hardest State Exam in the Republic of the Philippines, and it is the only one of its kind that is exclusively administered by the Supreme Court of the Philippines. While all other types of State Exams are administered by the Professional Regulations Commission, it is the Bar Exam alone that is being administered by the Supreme Court and held every September in the City of Manila.

Prior to recent reforms pushed by the Supreme Court through the Office of the Bar Confidante, the Bar Exams is primarily an essay type of exam covering eight subjects. With the reforms, the exam for 2011 shall be partly administered using Multiple Choice type of Questions as well as an essay portion that is to be answered in memorandum form. The details as to how these reforms are to be carried out have not yet been fully discussed by the SC as of date.

In a grueling four Sunday exam covering the entire month of September, the final Sunday is generally a joyous affair called Salubong where friends, family and well-wishers cheer the examinees as they file out the De La Salle University at 5:00PM. This year's Salubong was rocked by violence when still unnamed perpetrators lobbed a grenade that injured close to fifty well-wishers - mostly law students from the San Beda College of Law - on that fateful day, two lost their limbs due to the blast, while a third one was wrongfully tagged by the Manila media as a suspect.

This country seems to be hounded by tragedy upon tragedy with every passing month. The recent one was during the Salubong. A student from a provincial law school was viciously tagged and accused as the perpetrator of the grenade blast. I personally know that that law student has no complicity in the grenade attack. While it is unfortunate that many were injured, another victim, suffering in silence, was injured by the Manila Media and the Manila Police District of the Philippine National Police when they irresponsibly announced his name as a media without verifying the source of the information.

It is to be noted that the supposed suspect is a fourth year law student and an organic member of their school's Central Bar Operations team. While he has not yet been officially tagged as a suspect by the investigating agencies, he has now been demonized by the public as the perpetrator. No LAW STUDENT can ever do what they have accused him of doing. The Supreme Court will start its parallel investigation on October 4, 2010 in order to get to the bottom of the issue hounding the nation's Capital which has rocked all Schools of Law. But I digress, I will reserve my thoughts on the matter in a different post.

Verily, the examinees will have a long 6-7 month wait before the results will be released. The wait was more agonizing than taking the exam itself; 2 examiners are assigned to check each notebook of more than 5,000 examinees for this year's exam alone in the hope that the checking will be completed much earlier than expected. However, the usual period when the results will be released would be some time around April or before the start of the Holy Week.

That is a very long wait. Some examinees will start to go on with their lives, trying to forget the exam and hope for the best, but most definitely, the excitement that one feels when one is about to take the Bar Exam will be back once rumors of the release will be floated around. Indeed, 6-7 months is a long time to wait. While some find employment in the meantime, others enjoy the time they have before knowing the results. As we all know, the results will go either way.

I wish all the 2010 Bar Examinees Good luck as the long wait officially started last October 1, 2010. You did a good job hurdling all four Sundays. May you hurdle with sanity the next succeeding weeks prior to the release of the results.

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