TWO GRADUATES of the University of Santo Tomas-Legazpi topped the November 2019 Bar examinations.
Mae Diane Azorez scored 91.049 percent and placed first, while Myra Baranda ranked third with a score of 88.825 percent.
UST-Legazpi, formerly Aquinas University, was founded in 1948 as Legazpi Junior Colleges by Spanish philanthropist Buenaventura de Erquiaga and was turned over to the Dominican Order in 1965. Aquinas University changed its name to UST-Legazpi in September 2017, two years after the Dominicans consolidated their educational institutions into two main branches or “traditions,” UST and Letran.
UST-Manila’s Kenneth Glenn Manuel clinched the sixth spot with an 88.173-percent score.
A UST journalism alumna, Rhowee Buergo, placed seventh with a score of 87.871 percent.
Others in the top 10 were: Princess Fatima Parahiman, No. 2, 89.523 percent (University of the East); Dawna Fya Bandiola, No. 4, 88.336 percent (San Beda College-Alabang); Jocelyn Fabello, No. 5, 88.263 percent (Palawan State University); Anton Luis Avila, No. 8, 87.582 percent (Saint Louis University); Jun Dexter Rojas, No. 9, 87.5765 percent (Polytechnic University of the Philippines); and Bebelan Madera, No. 10, 87.3795 percent (University of St. La Salle).
Former Varsitarian associate editors Gena Myrtle Terre and Carla Patricia Perez also made it to the list of new lawyers.
The national passing rate rose to 27.36 percent or 2,103 out of 7,685 examinees, from last year’s 22.07 percent or 1,800 out of 8,155 examinees.
The University posted a 77.88-percent passing rate, or 88 out of 113 examinees.
UST Faculty of Civil Law Dean Nilo Divina said he was pleased with the results because UST-Manila had a good batch “imbued with determination and strong faith in God.”
“[In the next year,] we will be doing the same thing. Hard work and prayers. We work as if everything depends on work and we pray as if everything depends on prayer. There is no other formula,” he told the Varsitarian.
The Supreme Court lowered this year’s passing rate to 74 percent of 75 percent, citing the “discerned need for more younger and technologically adept lawyers to help different front of society.”
More than 8,200 examinees from all over the country took the Bar exams in UST-Manila during the four Sundays of November 2019.
The examinations, all essay questions, covered political law, labor law, civil law, taxation, mercantile law, criminal law, remedial law and legal and judicial ethics.
The Supreme Court announced the postponement of the 2020 Bar exams due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
