Congratulations 2023 Bar exams passers

“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.” 

– Beverly Sills

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WE congratulate all the passers in the 2023 Philippine bar examinations held on September 17 (Sunday), 20 (Wednesday), and 24 (Sunday). 

Instead of announcing it next year, the Philippine Supreme Court (SC) will release the official results, including the list of passers and top examinees to over 10,000 aspiring lawyers, in the afternoon of Tuesday, December 5, 2023, according to the official notice from SC issued in November 16.

Headed by Bar chairperson and Associate Justice Ramon Paul Hernando, the simultaneous digital bar exams were administered at 14 local testing centers in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

SC conducted the exams through Examplify, a secure examination delivery program in which examinees will use their devices in their preferred venue, monitored by in-person proctors and closed-circuit television cameras in exam rooms.

Before officially posting results, the PRC Board said SC is conducting a special en banc session to decode the bar exam results. 

This is the process of opening the sealed envelopes with the names of passers.

The list of passers will also be posted on the SC’s official website and flashed via widescreen at the Supreme Court’s front yard. 

The professional licensure examination for lawyers in the country, the Philippine Bar Examination is arguably the most difficult licensure exam in the Philippines and is exclusively administered by the SC of the Philippines through the Supreme Court Bar Examination Committee.

The Philippine Bar Examination has been thought to be one of the hardest in the world because of the number of subjects covered (eight). In order to pass, PRC Board said takers need to obtain a general average of 75 percent in all law subjects and must not fall (and fail) below 50 percent in any of the subjects.

 

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We wish Iloilo City Mayor Geronimo “Jerry” P. Treñas well and may he have a speedy recovery after he reportedly underwent a “successful” angioplasty December 2 following a routine medical check-up. 

Angioplasty, also called balloon angioplasty, is a procedure that opens arteries to let blood go through more easily. 

Healthcare providers use this minimally invasive procedure in tight spots in arteries where plaque makes the space inside an artery too narrow or blocks it.

It is a procedure to open narrowed or blocked blood vessels that supply blood to the heart, according to health experts. These blood vessels are called the coronary arteries. 

A coronary artery stent is a small, metal mesh tube that expands inside a coronary artery, according to health experts.

Treñas’ doctor reportedly found a blocked artery in his heart, thus necessitating the procedure that took only 30 minutes. 

“Let us all include him and his family in our prayers,” appealed the official statement from the Iloilo City Mayor’s Office.

If the city mayor had a planned (non-emergency) coronary angioplasty, he should be able to return to work after a week. 

However, if Treñas had an emergency angioplasty following a heart attack, it may be several weeks or months before he recovers fully and is able to return to work. 

Thank God he didn’t have a heart attack. Get well soon, Mayor Treñas.

 

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ILLNESSES. Homosexuality remained on the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental illnesses until 1973. In other words, if you were a gay before that year, you were considered as psychotic or a mental patient. We can just imagine the tribulation and distress members of gay community went through until 1973.

XANTHOPHOBIA is fear of the color yellow.

VASECTOMY. The first "official" vasectomy was performed in 1893.

BEDROOM. People who have a television in their bedroom have 50 percent less sex than those who don't. (Source: Baby and Families)

BERTRAND RUSSELL said: "Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives." 

OLDEST SEX TOY. The oldest dildo in the world is approximately 28,000 years old. It was discovered in 2005 in Tubingen, Germany by archaeological researchers at the university there. It is eight inches long and "hard as a rock." The team also posited that the stone phallus could have been used as a striking stone (but that's not as interesting as the other believed use, is it!)

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)

 

First AI-assisted lawyers?

“AI is a tool. The choice about how it gets deployed is ours.”

—Oren Etzioni

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

CAN the Philippines produce lawyers with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) this year?

If authorities (in this case, the Supreme Court of the Philippines) will allow it, possible; if not, it’s impossible.

For sure, SC will never even think about it in as far as the Bar tests are concerned—in whatever application. Never today and in the future.

It would be unfair to this year’s Bar exam passers if their success was attributed to AI, or for whatever “help” AI could lend. 

The ascription was nightmarish for successful Bar examinees; It’s highly deplorable, disgusting, damaging and must be forcefully corrected immediately. 

AI has been known as a machine's ability to perform the cognitive functions usually associated with human minds, such as perceiving, reasoning, learning, interacting with an environment, problem solving, and even exercising creativity.

Good thing that Supreme Court Associate Justice Ramon Paul Hernando, chair of this year’s bar examinations, has already debunked and even denounced as “false information” that the 2023 Bar examinations will be “sorted, checked, and corrected by means of artificial intelligence.”

The quicker he issued the statement the better before merchants of half-truths and chaos can succeed in tainting the credibility of the Bar exam results.

 

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Hernando has asserted “the 2023 Bar examinations shall be checked by four examiners per subject, all of whom are established experts in their respective fields, and who are by no means created or powered by artificial intelligence.”

“For the longest time, Bar Examinees have had to endure several months of perceived agony of waiting before the results of the professional licensure exams for future lawyers are released,” he added in a statement.

Hernando also said: “The initial probe commenced by the Office of the 2023 Bar Chair has unveiled the identity of the administrator of both Facebook accounts. The Court is currently undertaking proper measures against the said individual, particularly, the prompt engagement of the National Bureau of Investigation in the conduct of criminal investigation of the nefarious activities and questionable circumstances surrounding this personality.”

The last day of the three-day Bar examinations was on Sept. 24.  Covered subjects were Criminal Law and Remedial Law in the morning and Legal and Judicial Ethics with Practical Exercises in the afternoon.

 

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Rumors of AI intervention may have surfaced after Hernando announced early this month the 2023 Bar examinations might be released in early December or before Christmas Day.

Everything that is new will always attract skepticism and malicious innuendo. 

“This year, however, following the examples of my recent predecessors as Bar Chair, the time spent by the Examinees waiting in agony for the results of the exams will be cut short: my team and I are eyeing the release of the results of the 2023 Bar Examinations in early December before Christmas Day,” he explained.

“Yes, you heard me right, the results will, God-willing, come out in early December, before Christmas Day.”

He also announced there would be simultaneous oath-taking and signing of the Roll of Attorneys in the same month to ensure that a new batch of lawyers will be produced before the year ends.

“It will be an additional reason for those who will hurdle the Bar Exams to celebrate the Holiday Season,” the SC associate justice said.

He added: “This year’s Bar Examinations are divided into six core subjects: Political and Public International Law (15%); Commercial and Taxation Laws (20%); Civil Law (20%); Labor Law and Social Legislation (10%); Criminal Law (10%); and Remedial Law, Legal and Judicial Ethics with Practical Exercises (25%). From today, there will be two more exam dates which are September 20 and 24.”

 

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A US House of Representatives Oversight panel was scheduled to hold its first hearing in the impeachment inquiry of President Joseph “Joe” Biden. 

A committee spokesperson told CNN that the hearing would focus on the constitutional and legal questions Republicans were raising about Biden. 

While the witnesses were still being finalized, House Oversight Chairman James Comer told CNN he planned to have a financial expert speak about the bank records he has uncovered pertaining to the Biden family’s business dealings and a constitutional expert to discuss why an impeachment inquiry is warranted. 

The panel was also poised to issue its first subpoenas to the president’s son and brother, Hunter and James Biden, according to the spokesperson.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)