By Benjamin Pulta | Philippine News Agency
The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday (Jan. 14) rescheduled anew the Bar Examination due to the COVID-19 situation.
The exam will now be held on Feb. 4 and 6, instead of the previous Jan. 23 and 25, citing a high rate of infection among examinees and support personnel.
The SC said 16.8% of the 8,546 Bar examinees who responded to an email are either positive for COVID-19, living with someone positive for the virus, or under quarantine as a direct contact and are at risk of not being able to take the examination if the original schedule were to push through.
Given the current infection rate and quarantine situation of the Bar personnel, the SC bulletin stated that 16 of the 31 teams that will be deployed will be critically understaffed if the current schedule were maintained.
Examinees were advised to strictly undergo quarantine by Jan. 20.
The SC earlier said examinees who will test positive for COVID-19 will be denied entry to their local testing centers.
The prohibition will apply to all cases, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic.
The Bar exam will be held in multiple sites for the first time after the SC approved the testing venues in August last year.
The last time the Bar was held in November 2019, Mae Diane Azores of the University of Sto. Tomas – Legazpi (formerly Aquinas University) was the topnotcher with a grade of 91.05%.
This time, examinees who obtain an 85% or higher weighted score shall be recognized for exemplary performance “to enable a more reasonable approach to appraising and reporting on Bar Examination performance.”
The SC will also rank law schools from the most to the least number of passers among first-time examinees and a separate list ranked according to the most to the least number of examinees recognized for exemplary performance. (PNA) -ag
