Lower Bar passing grade lauded

MANILA, Philippines – The decision of the Supreme Court to lower the passing rate from 75 to 70 percent would serve the country’s best interest, one of the topnotchers in the 2007 Bar examinations said yesterday.

This was the optimistic view of Jennifer Ong of the University of the Philippines, who garnered an average of 83.35 percent in the Bar exams, second only to Mercedita “Menchie” Ona of Ateneo de Manila University, who scored 83.55 percent.

Ong yesterday told The STAR that they were happy about the decision of the SC because had the passing rate not been adjusted, there would be less and less lawyers in the country.

As a result of the lowering of the passing rate to 70 percent and the disqualification rate in three subjects from 50 percent to 45 percent, 22.91 percent of examinees or 1,289 law graduates are now lawyers.

If the Supreme Court did not make the alteration in the procedure, only five percent of the Bar takers would have hurdled the exams.

“Maybe it was really a hard test. Questions were unexpected. And it is within the Supreme Court’s decision and prerogative as to the procedure on the Bar results,” Ong said.

She also expressed confidence that the qualifications of the new batch of lawyers remain high despite the adjustment in the score.

Ong, while elated over the results of the Bar, is also feeling nervous at the same time.

“I am very happy and relieved, but there’s also some sort of pressure because people will be expecting more from me, but as a human being, I am also prone to make some mistakes,” she said.

Ong said she intends to stay with the Lim, Ocampo and Leynes law offices in Makati where she is a junior associate.

Ona, the bar topnotcher, also said in an interview with ABS-CBN that she will continue working for the Sycip Salazar Hernandez and Gatmaitan Law Office, the largest law firm in the country, where she has been working as a legal assistant.

“I’ll continue working with Sycip. I’m satisfied with the company,” Ona said.

After passing the bar, she now becomes an associate, then maybe a partner someday.

She says he has no plans to enter politics, like what a number of past bar topnotchers have done.

Ona, 27, wanted to pass the 2007 bar exams since this would make her an associate of the law office, but she never expected she would top it.

 “I didn’t expect to top the bar exams. It was just a bonus,” Ona said.

Ona took up Business Administration and Accountancy at the University of the Philippines earlier, where she graduated cum laude, before taking up law.

Ona, who said she learned of the news from a friend in the Supreme Court, credited her bar exams success to “studying” and “prayers.”

Intensive preparation

Both Ona and Ong made sure they prepared well for the Bar, said to be the most grueling government-administered test.

In her first television interview on ABS-CBN News, Menchie Ona said she studied “six and a half days from March last year (after graduating from law school) to September (the month she took the exams).

“That’s Monday to Friday, Saturday is half day, then Sunday again. I had a stop watch, I had to study for at least seven to nine hours a day,” she told ABS-CBN.

On her rest day, she went out with Carlo, her boyfriend, or watched a movie with her family.

Another challenge that she had to overcome was her recurring migraine.

Ona said that she even had a migraine attack during one examination day.

“Once the migraine attacks, I could not study anymore, even on the next day. I have to eat every three hours because I should not be hungry when I have migraine,” she said.

Ong, for her part, said she studied for five months, but also made sure that she had time to relax on Saturdays or Wednesdays.

Prayer for strength

Ona, who opted not to go to the Supreme Court in Padre Faura to check the results, told ABS-CBN that she spent two hours in a church near their village in Quezon City.

“I always pray for strength and perseverance.” After taking the bar, she prayed the novena, leaving everything to God.

“You need divine intervention at that point (after the bar). I was really nervous,” Ona said.

It was when she finally got home that she received a text message from a friend with her name written ahead of nine other examinees.

“I thought it was an alphabetical list of successful bar examinees. I replied ‘thank you’. Then, she called, ‘that’s the top ten already.’ I said, ‘really?’ I couldn’t believe it. She gave me a caveat. She said that’s from certain school so it’s not yet official.”

Menchie tried to downplay the text until another batchmate who went to the SC called to congratulate her.

“It was then that I believed the earlier text, because the results were out already,” Menchie said.

“I cried and cried then shouted for joy,” she added. – Sandy Araneta, ABS-CBN.com