The Supreme Court (SC) has affirmed its 2019 decision that declared unconstitutional the requirement of the Legal Education Board (LEB) for students to pass the Philippine Law School Admission Test (PhiLSAT) for enrolment in law schools in the country.
It’s 2019 decision declared that the LEB’s PhiLSAT requirement was “an act and practice of excluding, restricting and qualifying admissions to law schools in violation of the institutional academic freedom on who to admit.”
Specifically, declared unconstitutional in the 2019 decision was paragraph 9 of LEB’s Memorandum Order No. 7-2016 which provides that “all college graduates or graduating students applying for admission to the basic law course shall be required to pass the PhiLSAT as a requirement for admission to any law school in the Philippines and that no applicant shall be admitted for enrolment as a first year student in the basic law courses leading to a degree of either Bachelor of Laws of Juris Doctor unless he/she has passed the PhiLSAT taken within two years before the start of studies for the basic law course.”
On the basis of the decision, the Philippine Association of Law Schools (PALS) filed a letter requesting clarification on the status and treatment of PhilSAT. The SC treated PALS’ letter as a motion for leave to intervene.
Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea and LEB also filed a motion for reconsideration.
In its petition for intervention, PALS asked the SC to declare unconstitutional LEBMO No. 7-2016 in its entirety because the memorandum infringes on academic freedom insofar as it prescribes a passing score to qualify for admission to law school, and the status of the PhiLSAT as a pre-requisite for admission to law schools is unclear despite the High Court’s nullification of Section 9 of the memorandum.
In resolving the issue, the SC – in a resolution issued last Nov. 9 and written by Associate Justice Rodil V. Zalameda – declared unconstitutional the entire LEBMO No. 7-2016.
This means that all the LEB memoranda, circulars and issuance pertaining to LEBMO NO. 7-2016 were nullified and struct down as unconstitutional.
The LEB was created under Republic Act No. 7662, known as the Legal Education Reform Act of 1993, as an agency separate from the Department of Education but attached to it only for budgetary purposes and administrative support.
Among the powers vested in the LEB by the law were administration of legal education system in the country, supervision of law schools, setting of standards for accreditation of law schools, prescription of minimum standards for law admission and minimum qualifications, and compensation to faculty members.
Quoting portions from the SC resolution, a copy of which was not immediately available, the High Court’s public information office (PIO) said:
“Synthesizing the provisions of LEBMO No. 7-2016, it is evident that unless prospective students have a certificate of exemption, they are compelled to take and pass the said exam as an eligibility requirement for law school.
“Under pain of sanction or fine, law schools are prohibited from accepting prospective students who do not meet the said requirements. For being unreasonably exclusionary, restrictive, and qualifying, the Court declared Section 9 of LEBMO No. 7-2016 unconstitutional.
“The Court added that the legal basis for the PhiLSAT is LEBMO No. 7-2016. However, since the overall intent behind LEBMO No. 7-2016 is to administer an exclusionary test through PhiLSAT, all of its provisions, whether key or ancillary, form an integral composite that lays down a holistic framework that is operatively interdependent and hence, cannot be extricated from one another.
“Accordingly, it would be more appropriate to strike down all remaining provisions. This gives the LEB a fresh start, devoid of any arbitrary preconceived ideas when it sits down with the law schools or PALS for genuine and meaningful discussions on a possible acceptable replacement of the present PhiLSAT.
“Requiring the schools to accept only those who took and passed the exam amounts to a dictatorial control of the State, through LEB, and runs afoul of the intent of the Constitution.
“Furthermore, the Court sustained its ruling that the prohibition against accepting applicants for the Master of Laws without a Bachelor of Laws or Juris Doctor degree under Section 17 of LEBMO No. 1-2011 is void for infringing the right of the school to determine who to admit to their graduate degree programs.
“The Court previously held that such requirement effectively nullified the option of admitting non-law graduates on the basis of relevant professional experience that a law school, pursuant to its own admissions policy, may otherwise have considered.
“The Court also held that the LEB issuances prescribing the qualifications and classifications for faculty members, deans, and deans of graduate schools of law violate the academic freedom of law schools on who may teach.
“It ruled that there is no question that the master’s degree requirement for tertiary education teachers is permissible. What is unacceptable for being unreasonable is how the LEB exercised its authority to impose such requirement as discussed at length in the assailed Decision.
“The Court said that the LEB issuances violate the law schools’ right to set their own faculty standards and evaluate the qualifications of their teachers.
“In so doing, the LEB issuances infringe on the academic freedom of the schools to choose who may teach their students.
“The Court also declared invalid LEBMC No. 6-2017, LEB Resolution No. 2012-02, and Resolution No. 2012-06 insofar as these issuances require law schools to submit a letter and Certification instead of a special order, a document issued by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) certifying that students have completed the required four-year course and complied with all the requirements.”
The dispositive portion of the resolution released by the PIO:
“WHEREFORE, premises considered, the Partial Motion for Reconsideration with Joint Comment/Opposition on Respondent’s Motion for Reconsideration of petitioners in GR No. 242954 is PARTIALLY GRANTED.
“The Petition-in-Intervention of the Philippine Association of Law Schools is likewise PARTIALLY GRANTED.
“Accordingly: a) LEBMC No. 6-2017, LEB Resolution No. 2012-02, and Resolution No. 2012-06 are declared INVALID insofar as these issuances require the law schools to submit a letter and Certification in place of a Special Order. b) The entire LEBMO No. 7-2016 is declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
“Consequently, all existing memoranda, circulars, issuances by the Legal Education Board relating to LEBMO No. 7-2016 and the conduct of the current Philippine Law School Admission Test administered by the Legal Education Board are hereby VACATED and SET ASIDE. They are deemed without force and effect.
“The Motion for Reconsideration (of the Decision dated September 10, 2019) filed by respondents Legal Education Board and Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea is PARTIALLY GRANTED, in that paragraphs 1 and 2 of Section 15, LEBMO No. 1-2011 are declared VALID.
“All other claims of petitioners, respondents, and the Philippine Association of Law Schools are DENIED.
“The Court’s Decision dated 10 September 2019 STANDS in all other respects.”
The SC’s 2019 decision partially granted the petitions filed a group led by former Makati City regional trial court (RTC) Judge Oscar B. Pimentel and group of intervenors led by April D. Caballero.
On top of the abolition of LEB and PhiLSAT, Pimentel’s group also sought the transfer of the regulation of law schools to the SC.
PhiLSAT examinations were conducted by LEB in April 2017, September 2017, April 2018, and September 2018.
Based on LEB’s Memorandum No. 7, schoolyear 2017-2018 was the pilot year for PhiLSAT but law schools were allowed to enroll students who took the examinations but did not pass the tests.