FEATURE: Ilonggo with cerebral palsy passes bar

CEBU, Philippines - For some, it was hard work; for others it was plain luck, but for Julius Alegrado, it was divine intervention that pulled him through the 2010 bar examinations.

Alegrado, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy-spastic diplegia (most common form of cerebral palsy that affects the legs) after he was born, was one of the 19 bar passers from Iloilo.

Why divine intervention? Alegrado said the recent bar exam was his second try, the first of which was in 2008 right after he graduated from the Central Philippine University (CPU) law school in Iloilo City.

"When I first took the bar exams, I did not rely on review notes. I relied on myself. I was even saying I don't need the review materials. I thought that I could memorize the books from cover to cover. That's how sure I was of passing the bar exams," Alegrado recounted.

But he failed and the heartbreaking thing was that he was only .05 percent short of making the passing mark.

It was then that it dawned on him that God has a purpose for "failing" him. "It was at that moment when I knew God wanted to send me a message: For me to leave everything up to him when I knew I did everything I could," Alegrado said.

"That failure was the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me realized that without God, I am nothing," he said.

In the interim, from that fall into the recent bar, Alegrado applied for work at the Presidential Management Staff. He was considered for any job, until April 2009 when he got an endorsement from then Provincial Board Member Rodolfo Cabado, a friend of then PMS head Hermogenes Esperon.

By 2010, after a lot of persuasion from my co-PMS employees, he decided to give himself a second stab at the bar. "At that time, I had this mindset that I already did what I could, so it's up to our God to reveal his plans to me. Unlike the first time I took, my prayers were more than my studies," he said.

Finally, when the bar exams results were out, God's revelation showed Alegrado among the bar passers.

Alegrado was born on July 3, 1983 at Tapaz, Capiz to a middle-class family. His mother, he calls Mamang Helen, delivered him 7-month premature, and he only had a birth weight of 4.8 pounds.

"I was destined to survive," he said now, as he emphasized there was nothing special or abnormal about him. "My family let me feel that I'm normal as anyone could be," he said.

He was initially schooled at Tapaz, Capiz until the family, due to financial drawbacks, relocated to Brgy. Bakhaw in Mandurriao, Iloilo City. "Of course, I went through all that bullying like they used to tease me pi-ang (cripple)," he said.

The bullying and teasing however made him more determined to prove his worth. In 1996, Alegrado finished valedictorian at Bakhaw Elementary School. In high school, he was forced to use cane to aid him walk, and the bullying got more than before. "My self-esteem was intact. My parents did not make me feel inferior," he said. In 2000, he graduated with honors at the Iloilo National High School in La Paz, Iloilo City.

He then took his Bachelor of Science in Political Science at West Visayas State University where he graduated cum laude in 2004.

For Alegrado, being a lawyer was a job destined for him. "There was no lawyer in the family. But my grandfather used to tell that I should be a lawyer," he said, adding that the biggest motivator on him was the family's adversity. Being a certified lawyer now, he said he studied law because he wanted to give something back to his family. "It's really for them," he said.

Currently, his father is a licensed insurance agent while his mother has stopped working abroad as a nurse.