The country will have 8,241 new lawyers who will take their oath before the Supreme Court (SC) justices and sign the Roll of Attorneys as members of the bar starting at 1 p.m. on Monday, May 2, at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
The new lawyers passed the first ever online and regionalized bar examinations administered by the SC through its Office of the Bar Confidant (OBC) last February 4 and 6 in various testing centers nationwide.
Monday’s oath-taking ceremony will be limited to the new lawyers, SC justices, bar examiners, law school deans, and organizers.
Only one guest is allowed per new lawyer. All guests will have to stay at the SMX Convention Center Manila where a live feed will be shown via LED walls.
The oath-taking ceremony will be broadcast live on YouTube using the official account of the SC’s Public Information Office -- https://youtube.com/c/supremecourtph.
Required health protocols will be enforced strictly by the SC inside the Mall of Asia Arena and the SMX Convention Center Manila.
The SC’s OBC said: “Both the new lawyers and their guests have to present the original or digital copy of their vaccination card or vaccination certificate upon entry. Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated attendees must present their negative Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test result taken in a Department of Health (DOH)-accredited facility within 48 hours prior to the oath-taking ceremony.”
Only 3.9 percent of the 11,790 law graduates who were admitted to take the online bar examinations were unable to take or finish the exams.
“Of the 8,241 that passed, 761 earned recognitions for exemplary performance, having obtained grades ranging from 85 per cent to 90 per cent,” Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen, chairperson of the 2020-2021 bar examinations committee, said.
The passing grade was 75 percent. The passing rate translated to 72.28 per cent of those who finished the two-day examinations, Leonen said.
The 2020-2021 bar examination was the first that did not recognize the 10 topnotchers as had been done in previous years.
Leonen said the removal of topnotchers was one of the reforms in the bar examinations.