By REY G. PANALIGAN
A graduate of the University of Santo Tomas in Legazpi City, formerly Aquinas University, topped the 2019 Bar examinations, with a 91.0490 percent rating.
Two-thousand, one-hundred three or 27.36 percent of the 7,685 law graduates who took the examinations administered by the Supreme Court last November passed.
At second is princess Fatima T. Parahiman, University of the East, 89.5330 percent; Myra M. Baranda, UST-Legazpi, third, 88.8250 percent; Dawna Fya O. Bandiola, San Beda College (Alabang), fourth, 88.3360 percent; and Jocelyn B. Fabello, Palawan State University, fifth, 88.2630.
Rounding out the Top 10 are Kenneth Glenn L. Manuel, UST, sixth, 88.1730 percent; Rhowee D. Buergo, Jose Rizal University, seventh, 87.8710 percent; Anton Luis A. Avila, St. Louis University, eighth, 87.5820 percent; Jun Dexter H. Rojas, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, ninth, 87.5765 percent; and Bebelan A. Madera, University of St. La Salle, 10th, 87.3795 percent.
The results were released online through the SC website, www.sc.judiciary,gov.ph, after the justices’ full court session yesterday.
SC Associate Justice Estela M. Perlas Bernabe was the chairperson of the 2019 Bar examinations committee.
Bernabe said that during the SC full court session, the passing grade was reduced from 75 to 74 percent in view of “the discerned need for younger and technologically adept lawyers to help different fronts of society as we meet the preculiar challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to the new normal.”
In her message, Bernabe told the Bar passers to “always be reminded that with the distinction you gained as lawyers comes the concomitant responsibility to further the ideals of justice and the rule of law.”
“Our society, especially during the most trying times, beckons you not only to become learned experts but more so to fight for the cause of the oppressed, to advance the pleas of the helpless, and to inspire others as a living example of integrity above all,” she added.
