“There is injustice everywhere…And where there is injustice, there is a growing clamor for change. Hence, to our new lawyers: the country needs you,” said the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) in its message to the new lawyers of the country as the bar exam results were released on April 29.
The group said to their news panyeros and panyeras that “lawyering is not just a profession” but “a calling” and that it is “time to put your call to the fore.”
“As lawyers, you are now tasked with the great responsibility and obligation not only to serve your clients in court but to serve the people at a time when injustice is as dangerous and as virulent as any known deadly disease,” said NUPL.
The group said that we are in the midst of two deadly pandemics: one is a global public health emergency and the second is the apparent breakdown of the rule of justice.
“We hear the stories every day: the hungry are arrested, detained and slapped with criminal charges for demanding food on their table. Hundreds of people – including minors and the elderly – being arbitrarily detained for leaving their houses to buy or search for food. Law enforcement officers mauling and shooting people for alleged violations of quarantine protocols. Those who dare challenge and speak up against all these injustices have become targets themselves,” the group relayed.
The Supreme Court released online the results of the November 2019 Bar Exams on Wednesday, April 29. A total of 2,103 of 7,685 examinees passed, an overall passing rate of 27.36%.
“In the time of COVID-19, draconian emergency measures and autocratic, even despotic, mindsets that impact viciously and recklessly on basic rights are being venerated as acceptable and necessary. Economic and social rights remain fundamentally dishonored. Double and even multiple standards of justice as well as inconsistencies in the legal and justice system taunt us in our faces. The new lawyer must not fall into conformity and complacency amidst these all,” said NUPL President Atty. Edre Olalia.
Olalia also said, “I am particularly glad and proud that the “non-elite/elitist” schools swept it this year. Proves and disproves a lot of things.”
The SC also announced on the same day the 2019 Bar results was released that there will be no bar exams for 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
SC Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta said in his message that “the circumstances accompanying this occasion are, to say the least, unfamiliar and trying.”
“Hurdling the Bar has set the stage for all of you to accomplish exceptional things; it is my hope that years from now, after you have made your mark as lawyers, you will look back on this day not only with gratitude, but also with a renewed sense of commitment towards upholding truth, fairness and justice within the legal profession,” said Peralta.
Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, chair of the 2020 Bar examinations panel, issued Bar Bulletin No. 11.S.2020.
“Upon the recommendation of the 2020 Bar Examinations Chairperson and in view of the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the country, as well as the social and economic disruption caused by the pandemic and the resulting enhanced community quarantine, the Supreme Court en banc resolved to postpone the 2020 Bar Examinations. This is to give the Court ample time to determine the necessary adjustments and to make adequate preparations for the safe and orderly conduct of the examinations,” the bulletin read.
The tests will push through “sometime in 2021,” with another testing center to be set up in Cebu City. The exams in the past took place at the University of Santo Tomas campus in Manila over four weekends.
