MANILA, Philippines – The February 2022 Philippine Bar Exam results for the historic 2020-2021 bar exam are expected to be released online after the Supreme Court (SC) special en banc session in few months after the grueling tests. This includes the full list of passers, exemplary passers (no top 10 or topnotchers), top performing schools and performance of law schools.
Due to the pandemic, the 2020-2021 Bar exam was shelved for two years. After several postponements, it was finally held on February 4 and 6, 2022 in 31 testing sites scattered in 22 local government units across the country. This will be a departure from the past bar examinations, which are generally held on all Sundays of November in centralized venue of University of Santo Tomas in Manila. SC also moved to digital modality of the exams.
The highest court clarified that modifications to the bar exam were pro hac vice (meaning, for this occasion only) because of the pandemic and a natural calamity.
Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, 2020/2021 Bar chairperson, said that 11,378 examinees took the exams on first day of the bar or 96.5 percent turnout. He added that 11,790 law graduates paid the application fee to take the bar exam, while only 11,405 downloaded the exam files.
Meanwhile, at least 219 who tested positive for COVID-19 were unable to take the bar exam. SC also said a still undetermined number of examinees were disqualified for violating policies and the Honor Code.
NOTE: At least 12 examinees were allowed to take the examination in the traditional handwritten format while one examinee who is afflicted with a disease that disabled his hands was aided by a stenographer who encoded his answers.
2020-2021 BAR EXAM RESULTS SUMMARY
- A-G Passers: 2020-2021 Bar Exam Result 2022
- H-O Passers: 2020-2021 Bar Exam Result 2022
- P-Z Passers: 2020-2021 Bar Exam Result 2022
- Exemplary Performance: 85% and above 2020-2021 bar passers
- Performance of law schools, top schools: 2020-2021 Bar Exam
- GUIDE: 2020/2021 bar passers online clearance procedure, oathtaking
SUPREME COURT OF THE PHILIPPINES
LIST OF PASSERS: 2020/2021 BAR EXAM RESULTS
Held on FEBRUARY 4 & 6, 2022
Released in March-May 2022
Stay tuned for the list of bar exam passers. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter for the updates.
WHEN IS 2020-2021 BAR EXAM RESULTS RELEASE?
As of this writing, the Supreme Court has no official announcement yet of the exact date of release of the 2020/2021 Bar exam results. But Leonen hinted of ‘soonest possible time’ due to the digital mode of the exams. Previous exams via paper-and-pencil test had results after 5-6 months.
“What I can only tell you, at the soonest possible time given the advances of technology that we have,” he said.
With this, it is possible that bar results will come out sometime in March to May 2022 or in 2-4 months.
2020-2021 BAR EXAM UPDATES, ANNOUNCEMENTS
Prior to the official release of list of passers, exemplary passers and performance of law schools, reliable sources give updates on the possible or exact date of release of bar exam results. Specifically, the SC and the personnel related to the administration of the bar exam are sharing information of the special en banc leading to the release of results mid-day of the schedule.
The Summit Express will once again provide immediate and live updates on this page and our social media accounts in time for the announcement of results.
Due to the pandemic, results are expected to just be available online and no one will be allowed to enter SC compound as list of passers will not be posted in the premises. The traditional setup during the pre-pandemic was full list of successful bar examinees is being flashed on a widescreen at the Supreme Court front yard.
NO TOPNOTCHERS FOR 2020-2021 BAR EXAM
Leonen announced last year that list of topnotchers will not be released for the 2020-2021 bar exam but they will instead recognize examinees who recorded “exemplary performance” in the licensure test.
The Bar chairperson said this is in consideration of the different circumstances that two batches of examinees went through amid a pandemic.
The Supreme Court this time will focus on the pass-fail method and examinees will receive pronouncements on whether they (1) passed with exemplary performance, (2) passed, or (3) did not pass.
Those who obtained a total weighted score of 85% or higher will be included in the “exemplary performance” list.
“The names of examinees who earned recognition for exemplary performance shall be made publicly available simultaneously with the list of passers, through the same media. Apart from this, no fanfare shall be devoted in releasing information on examinees who rendered exemplary performance,” Leonen added.
Exemplary performance: 85 % and above
Pass: 75 to less than 85 %
not pass: less than 75 %
No top Ten for the 2021 examinations. No competition. Instead a list of exemplary passers.
schools ranked: % of their passers, exemplary
Everyone is now a bar bet#BestBarEver2020_21
— Marvic Leonen — maroon check (@marvicleonen) August 27, 2021
COVERAGE OF EXAMINATIONS
The Supreme Court reduced the coverage and shortened the duration of the 2020/21 bar exam.
Instead of the usual eight subjects, bar hopefuls took four sets of examinations for two days.
1. The Law Pertaining to the State and Its Relationship with Its Citizens (formerly Political Law, Labor Law, and Taxation Law) – 30%;
2. Criminal Law – 15%;
3. The Law Pertaining to Private Personal and Commercial Relations (formerly Civil Law and Commercial Law) – 30%; and
4. Procedure and Professional Ethics (formerly Remedial Law, Legal Ethics, and Practical Exercises) – 25%.
Examinees were tasked to answer 15 to 18 straightforward questions per bar subject designed to address entry-level legal competency. All questions were essay-type and there were no multiple-choice questions.
BAR EXAM PASSING PERCENTAGE
Bar hopeful will have to earn at least 75% as total weighted score to pass. This score is the product of Bar subject’s relative weight and raw score as a percentage of the maximum possible score.
While a bar examinee is “deemed to have passed his examinations successfully if he/she has obtained a general average of 75%,” the SC en banc has the discretion whether to make adjustments, as it did in the previous Bar Examinations to lower the bar exam passing percentage.
Note: In the 2019 bar exam, passing percentage was lowered from 75% to 74%.
PHILIPPINE BAR EXAM OVERVIEW AND HISTORY
The Philippine bar examinations, dubbed as the most prestigious professional licensure exam in the country for aspiring lawyers, is the only professional exam not handled by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC). It is exclusively supervised by the Supreme Court.
The SC conducts the Bar examinations pursuant to Article VIII, Section 5 of the Constitution which provides that it shall have the power to promulgate rules governing the admission to the practice of law.
Some Filipino lawyers say the bar exam is hard because it is centralized on wide-range bar subjects, with the expected annual passing rate of 20% to 30%.
Special en banc session for the ‘decoding of bar exam results’ is being done morning prior to the release of results. Decoding is the process where the SC orders the Office of the Bar Confidant (OBC) to open the sealed envelopes with the names of the candidates who passed the exams.
In 2011, SC introduced multiple-choice questions (MCQ) in the exams resulting for higher passing rate. In 2012, passing rate plummeted to a 12-year low of 17.76%.
In 2013, SC revised the rule giving essay questions more weight (80 percent) than MCQ (20 percent). Passing rate recovered (22.18) but still far from the 30-percent mark in the early 2000s.
The 2014 exam also resulted to a low passing rate of 18.82% while a big jump was saw in 2015 having 26.21%, the the sixth highest since 2001 which had a 32.89 percent.
The historic high of 59.06% passing rate in 2016 was recorded as Chairman Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr was more “reasonable” as “points were given to answers, even if the positions taken may not exactly be the right answer.”
In the 2018 bar exam, passing rate was down to 22.07%. Sean James Borja of the Ateneo de Manila University aced the bar with 89.31%.
In the 2019 bar exam, passing rate rose a bit to 27.36% after adjusting the passing percentage to 74%. Mae Diane Azores of the University of Santo Tomas in Legaspi aced the bar with a rating of 91.0490%.
Check out the Comparative Results for the Bar Examinations in the past 20 years (statistics courtesy of OBC):
| Year | No. of Examinees | No. of Passers | Passing Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 7,685 | 2,103 | 27.36% |
| 2018 | 8,158 | 1,800 | 22.07% |
| 2017 | 6,748 | 1,724 | 25.55% |
| 2016 | 6344 | 3747 | 59.06% |
| 2015 | 6,605 | 1,731 | 26.21% |
| 2014 | 5,984 | 1,126 | 18.82% |
| 2013 | 5,292 | 1,174 | 22.18% |
| 2012 | 5,343 | 949 | 17.76% |
| 2011 | 5,987 | 1,913 | 31.95% |
| 2010 | 4,847 | 982 | 20.26% |
| 2009 | 5,903 | 1,451 | 24.58% |
| 2008 | 6,364 | 1,310 | 20.58% |
| 2007 | 5,626 | 1,289 | 22.91% |
| 2006 | 6,187 | 1,893 | 30.60% |
| 2005 | 5,607 | 1,526 | 27.22% |
| 2004 | 5,249 | 1,659 | 31.61% |
| 2003 | 5,349 | 1,108 | 20.71% |
| 2002 | 4,659 | 917 | 19.68% |
| 2001 | 3,849 | 1,266 | 32.89% |
| 2000 | 4,698 | 979 | 20.84% |
Meanwhile, veteran lawyer and former SC spokesman Theodore Te explained:
Each bar examination must be considered unique in itself when we look at the comparative statistics across the years. Unlike other licensure examinations which employ a standard set of questions and the same set of examiners across a period of time, the bar examinations for each year is practically a new exam because the composition of the Committee differs—from the Chair, who has absolute and sole discretion to choose the questions to be asked, to the eight examiners, who are the ones who correct the notebooks.
RELATED STORY
- FULL RESULTS: 2019 Philippine Bar Exams
— The Summit Express