A total of 6,924 law graduates have applied for the 115th Bar exams to be held on four Sundays of the month starting on November 6.
Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr., chairman of this year’s Bar exams committee of the high court, said in a circular to law school deans that there may be two items in the exams for enumeration and differentiation.
However, it is not the first time that enumeration items will be included in the Bar exams, which consist mainly of essay and multiple-choice types of question.
The Bar exams, considered to be most grueling licensure exam in the country, will be held in the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.
The SC has readied contingency measures if bad weather spoils the conduct of the four-Sunday exams.
Deputy Clerk of Court and Bar Confidant Ma. Christina Layusa said among these measures is the deployment of SC buses to pick up the examinees in several designated points in Metro Manila which will bring them to the UST campus in España.
In case of heavy rain in the morning of a Bar examination day, a limited number of Supreme Court buses shall be available to transport Bar Examinees and duty personnel to the University of Santo Tomas (UST) from the following pick-up points: Quezon City Memorial Circle (2 buses), Park and Ride, Lawton, Manila ( 1 bus), Supreme Court Compound, Taft Avenue (2 buses), Coastal Mall Terminal, Parañaque City (2 buses), Greenbelt and Glorietta, Ayala Center, Makati (2 buses) and at the Marikina Sports Complex (1 bus), as part of the contingency plan.
Layusa said SC shuttle buses will be stationed at these areas as early as 5:00 a.m. and will leave at exactly 5:30 a.m. for UST.
She said that in case of flooding inside the UST compound before the Bar examinations start, commuter vans of the SC shall be available to transport bar examinees and duty personnel from the UST gates to their respective examination buildings within UST.
‘’Priority in the use of the commuter vans shall be given to senior citizens, pregnant women and persons with disability,’ Layusa added.
In case, flooding persists after the end of the examinations on any given examination day, Layusa said the SC commuter vans on standby at each examination building in UST shall also be available to transport back the examinees and duty personnel to the Osmeña and Arellano Drives near Gate 5 on España Boulevard, where the SC shuttle buses are parked.
“The SC shuttle buses shall then be available to transport bar examinees and duty personnel from the UST to the following drop-off areas: north-bound passengers shall be transported up to QC Memorial Circle; south-bound passengers could be dropped-off at Park and Ride in Lawton, Supreme Court premises and Coastal Mall Terminal in Parañaque; for Makati area, drop-off area shall be at the Ayala Center (Glorietta and Greenbelt); and for Marikina area and the Marikina Sports Complex,” she added.
The Bar exams covers eight subjects – Political Law, Civil Law, Taxation, Labor Law, Criminal Law, Remedial Law, Mercantile Law and Legal and Judicial Ethics.
The exam was held for several years at the De La Salle University campus in Taft, Manila but the SC decided to move it to the UST in 2011 after DLSU ended its contract due to several construction activities in that year.
In the 2015 Bar exams, a total of 1,731 passed, representing 26.21 percent of the total of 6,605 takers.
Additional security measures were put in place since the grenade explosion that marred the Sept. 2010 Bar exams in De La Salle University in Manila.
In the past two years, the examinees were required to use transparent or see-through bags for purposes of convenience and security.
The measure was adopted “to further ensure the safety and security of the examinees and Bar personnel.”
In the 2013 Bar exams, the SC reverted back to its previous format, which was predominantly essay-type. They consist of 80 percent essay-type questions and 20 percent multiple-choice questions (MCQ).
In the two years prior to that, the SC had conducted a predominantly MCQ format of Bar exams.
The high court also lifted its five-strike rule in Bar examinations, a policy implemented since 2005 in which examinees who have flunked five times are disqualified from further taking the Bar exams.