THE start on Sunday of this year’s Bar exams being held at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila was peaceful and orderly.
The Supreme Court said there was no untoward incident reported inside and around the vicinity of the venue, which was heavily secured by the Manila Police District.
A total of 6,831 law graduates were admitted by the Supreme Court’s Office of the Bar Confidant to take this year’s Bar exams.
SC’s Public Information Office said 3,317 of the candidates are first-time takers while 3,514 are retakers.
Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr., chairman of this year’s Bar exams committee, said law school deans facilitated the conduct of the exams considered to be most grueling licensure exam in the country.
Subjects overed by the first Sunday exams were Political and Public International Law in the morning and Labor Law and Social Legislation in the afternoon.
The other six Bar subjects in the next Sundays will be Civil Law, Taxation, Criminal Law, Remedial Law, Mercantile Law and Legal and Judicial Ethics.
Just like in previous years, the Manila city government implemented security measures for the Bar exams.
A liquor ban is imposed within the 100-meter radius of UST and a “no parking” policy is implemented along España and Dapitan Streets during the conduct of the exams.
To facilitate the orderly arrival of the examinees with their families and law school supporters, the westbound lane of España Boulevard from Lacson Street to P. Noval Street was closed to traffic from 5 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. yesterday and will again be closed in the next three Sunday mornings.
The stretch of Dapitan Street from Lacson to P. Noval was also closed to motorists from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
On the last day of the Bar exams on Nov.27, the same road sections will also be closed to traffic from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., according to the MPD.
Justice Velasco earlier announced in a circular to law school deans that there would be two items in the exams for enumeration and differentiation.
However, it is not the first time that enumeration items will be included in the Bar exams, which is composed mainly of essay and multiple-choice types of question.
Just like in previous years, the exams will be held in the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.
The exam was held for several years at the De La Salle University campus in Taft, Manila but the SC decided to move it to the UST in 2011 after DLSU ended its contract due to several construction activities in that year.
In the 2015 Bar exams, a total of 1,731 passed, representing 26.21 percent of the total of 6,605 candidates who completed the exams.
Additional security measures were put in place since the grenade explosion that marred the Sept. 2010 Bar exams in De La Salle University in Manila.
In the past two years, the examinees were required to use transparent or see-through bags for purposes of convenience and security.
The measure was adopted “to further ensure the safety and security of the examinees and Bar personnel.”
In the 2013 Bar exams, the SC reverted back to its previous format, which was predominantly essay-type. They consist of 80 percent essay-type questions and 20 percent multiple-choice questions (MCQ).
In the two years prior to that, the SC had conducted a predominantly MCQ format of Bar exams.
The high court also lifted its five-strike rule in Bar examinations, a policy implemented since 2005 in which examinees who have flunked five times are disqualified from further taking the Bar exams.
