For more than a century, the Philippine bar
examination has been a tale of success, failure and redemption. Many are poised
to join the legal profession, yet a handful are given passes to hurdle that
difficult bar examinations. Candidly speaking, the bar examination is just
another examination akin to that in law school. There is nothing special
about it except that the examination is for eight subjects held at the University of Sto. Tomas and crunched into four Sundays. Frankly, many bar questions ask the same application of
principles and novel principles sometimes are introduced but, still, it is the
obvious that is begging.
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| Romancing the lips of an angel in celebration and failure. |
Now, in tears or frustration, you
have not read your name from among the list of the successful bar examinees. In
shock and denial, you perused the list over and over and over again. In desperation
and exasperation, you ought to blame the examiners, the professors and maybe,
your friends, family or your disposition in life for your failure.
To point fingers is a betrayal of
yourself. No one is to blame other than you. I have to warn you that this article
is not intended to draw inspiration so that by the time you are done reading
this material, you will immediately jump from your seat and scour the pages of
your law books. This article is an attempt, perhaps, of the reasons why you
have failed the bar and will keep failing.
Remember the 3 L’s? Does it even
sound familiar? 3 L’s as professors demand from you in your law school days are
LEGIBILITY, LANGUAGE and LAW.
What is LEGIBILITY? Legibility,
in its simplest form, is the ability to write clearly the words, phrases and
sentences so as to make it readable from the standpoint of the reader. You might
find your writing incomprehensible from another's view and you have a heavy burden to
correct your ways. The ability to convey your message in proper handwriting is
not an innate skill where only chosen artists are bestowed with rather it is a
learned skill. It is a skill which can be developed through constant practice
and patience.
However, legibility is not
limited in writing the words correctly; proper margin and indention are also
factors. Also, the proper way of erasure, if unavoidable, must be taken into
consideration. You may, perhaps, failed in this aspect if your work was done
hastily and with no regard to punctuation, margin, and indention. It is a sure
way to create a disaster.
An examiner feels respected if
your work is neat. There was a Supreme Court Guideline in the 2013 bar exams
that the ideal number of words per line is seven to ten words. Do not compress
the sentences and be generous of the spaces. The first impression does not come
from your reasoning and citation of law but from the legibility of your work.
Make it neat and comforting to the eyes of a 60 year old examiner.
What is LANGUAGE? By the time you
have decided to go to law school must have must already understood that the
official language of the court is English. Command of English is a key factor
to convey your message. Lack of it will send confusing ideas and
incomprehensible statements. Your subject-verb agreement may have no agreement
at all and your grammar may be in complete disarray.
Bad English is not always a
result of bad education. Bad English is an element of flunking. Bad English
does not make you a lawyer. Good command of English will always lead you to
greater percentage of passing the bar. You can easily dismay the examiner if,
for instance, in the opening lines alone, you speak of language fairly spoken
by aliens.
How do you cure that? I propose
two ways of solving the unsolvable, First, read a lot of news paper editorials;
and Second, memorize the law. Reading news paper items will make you more wittingly
articulate. Mimic the writing style of an editor.
When reading a material, always,
make sure to comprehend and finish it. It is always a good habit to finish
reading the material. Do not roll your eyes over or gaze at it like the
shooting stars at the night sky. Always bear in mind that the bar examination is an 8 hour ordeal and during that 8 hour, your comprehension to the questions
raised will give you a better chance of giving a correct and reasonable answer.
Now, by memorizing the law, you
are thereby literally borrowing the language of the law. You can never go wrong
when you memorize law, I speak only of the language and not its application. The
problem with law books is that it has no pictures. The remedy is to endure it.
Further, always find time to
mandatorily review your work and read in lips the sentences you’ve written. You
can track and detect with ease the lapses you have committed and correct it.
The trouble with you is that you do not review your work. Like a good editor,
correct your work before submission.
What is LAW? Bar exam is all
about preparation and preparation starts at the first of law school. It has
been, time and again, echoed in all articles written by legal luminaries on how
to pass even top the bar exam.
Either you lack basic knowledge
of the law or fail to appreciate the question so as to provide an incorrect
application of the law. Reading the bar question and understanding the bar
question are two different things. You probably failed to understand the bar
question, thus you provided Law A as an answer instead of Law B.
The examiners are not
unforgiving. In fact, they give credit to answers which may provide reasonable
and intelligent answer. Law is not a perfect science and it will never be. A
long standing principle today may be overturned in the afternoon. A law
promulgated a century ago may be repealed at any moment’s notice. A doctrine once
held for a time may be abandoned for a second. The point is, a good argument of
the law is a good credit waiting.
During you law days, perhaps, you
yielded to your desire in skipping reading the entire supreme court decision,
took shortcuts and embrace memory aids instead of law books, and drown in self
belief that you can make the bar with little to no understanding of the entire
process.
There are countless factors why
you failed and there will plenty of reasons to strive and strike again. Strike
like an eagle. The bar is just
another examination. There is nothing special about it. It’s just and will be
an examination.
So, why have you failed? Guess?
