2022 Bar Exams: 3,992 pass second pandemic-era test for lawyers
MANILA, Philippines (Updated 4:24 p.m.) — A total of 3,992 people passed the 2022 Bar exams out of the 9,183 examinees who finished the four-day test for aspiring lawyers.
This means that last year’s Bar exams — the second one conducted under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic — yielded a passing rate of 43.47%.
“The Court celebrates today as it welcomes the fresh zeal and vision that the newest members of the legal profession bring, even as it maintains the buoyant hope that each successful Bar candidate will find the most humane meaning and the noblest purposes behind this success,” Supreme Court Associate Justice Alfredo Caguioa, 2022 Bar exams chairperson, said Friday.
Caguioa continued, “May your new success be but a door that opens to ever meaningful opportunities for you to breathe life to the law in a way that is consistent with its spirit and in a manner that brings hope to the people and all of your country, which would well and truly give this accomplishment what perhaps maybe its highest worth.”
The Bar passers will be officially welcomed into the practice of law after they take their oath on May 2 at the Philippine International Convention Center and sign the Roll of Attorneys
The passing rate for the 2022 Bar exams is significantly lower than the 2020/21 test, which yielded a passing rate of 72.28%. Only those who scored an average of 75% above were deemed to have passed last year’s exams.
FULL LIST: 2022 Bar exams passers
The top five examinees all came from the University of the Philippines.
LIST: Top Bar passers, top law schools
Addressing those who failed the test, Caguioa said the Bar exams can never approximate their worth and encouraged them to keep fighting.
“Allow this setback to be only temporary, but your will to overcome the Bar examinations unchanged. The Bar examinations cannot begin to or will it ever measure the weight of your convictions, the strength of your courage, the depths of your compassion and the height of your dreams,” he said
From the initial Bar exam applicants of 10,006, only 9,183 people were able to finish the second-ever digitized and regionalized exams held over four days in November at 14 testing centers across the country
The slump in the turnout of examinees prompted Bar exams chairperson Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa to tell them not to give up.
This was the second Bar exams to be taken during the pandemic, with the Supreme Court having strongly urged examinees to quarantine for at least two weeks before the test and having required proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test.
The pandemic was not the only hurdle in the way of the Bar exams last year as some social media users called for its postponement following the onslaught of Severe Tropical Storm “Paeng” (Nalgae) that brought heavy rains and landslides across the country.
The test still pushed through, but examinees were allowed to apply for a refund of their fees or for these to be applied to the Bar exams in September 2023.
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