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SOURCE: Estela Perlas-Bernabe (2010). Experiencing The Bar A Second Time Court of Appeals. Feb 14, 2010. ca.judiciary.gov.ph/index.php? action=mnuactual_contents&ap=j90120.

The Bar Examinations is the only national test given by the Supreme Court to all law graduates in the country to determine their passage to the practice of law. It is given annually on four consecutive Sundays of September, on the following subjects with the corresponding weights: First Sunday – Political and International Law (15%) and Labor and Social Legislation (10%); Second Sunday – Civil Law (15%) and Taxation (10%); Third Sunday – Mercantile Law (15%) and Criminal Law (10%); Fourth Sunday – Remedial Law (20%) and Legal Ethics and Practical Exercises (5%). Under the Rules of Court, a bar candidate may be deemed to have passed his examinations successfully if he has obtained a general average of 75% in all subjects, without falling below 50% in any subject.

I took the bar examinations – for the first and last time – in 1976 after having graduated in the same year from the Ateneo College of Law. That may already be decades ago but the grueling six-month period of arduous mental calisthenics is forever etched in my memory, easily retrievable by the mere mention of the bar. My constant prayer then was for the bar examiners to ask fair questions and to be reasonably considerate in correcting the papers. Little did I know that I would someday be one of those dreaded examiners, and that I myself would be subject to the crucible of the standards I had set for them when I was an examinee, and even more relentlessly. However, I was not prepared for the realization that to be a bar examiner is a feat far horrendous than the taking of the bar itself.

I had, at the outset, considered it my good fortune to have been handpicked by Supreme Court Justice Adolfo Azcuna, the Chairman of the 2007 Bar Examinations, as the examiner in Mercantile Law that year. It was such a rare opportunity, and I could only commit to giving it all my best. I then wasted no time gathering all my books and materials relative to the subject, going through their pages, making notes, and finally framing the required number of questions and answers, which I reviewed over and over on a laptop that never left my sight from start to finish. After printing a hard copy of the file and personally handing it over to the Chairman, I downloaded the file to my USB, erased all traces of the

document from the computer including the garbage bin, and locked the USB in my vault. It was unquestionably my most valuable possession at that time.

The task of formulating the suggested questions would have been easier if I had the freedom to consult professors, colleagues, friends and staff. But this was wellnigh impossible if I were to adhere to the strictest confidentiality required of me. The fear of a leakage and the consequent scandal hung like Damocles’ sword over my head. I just had to keep everything to myself for my own peace of mind, and trusted no one, except my husband out of necessity and for sheer proximity.

I shunned social activities like the plague. I could not trust myself to lie through my teeth in the unlikely event that I get exposed, especially not to friends whose children were taking the bar that year. In the few times, however, that I was obligated to go and was found enmeshed in the usual hullabaloo about the bar, I was thankful that I was not a target of speculation. I was also not counted among my colleagues in court as one of the examiners probably because, by a simple process of elimination, I was the least likely candidate, being relatively new in the institution. It may also be because I had kept to the letter my regular duties in court and, thus, was always visible.

I would check some notebooks in the car while on the way and during lulls in the office. Yes, every minute counts if you had to finish a total of 5,627 booklets within a time frame of 22 weeks, which translated to 255 booklets a week, or 36 a day. I chewed negotiable instruments for breakfast, swallowed insurance policies for lunch, gnawed at stockholder’s appraisal rights for dinner, and picked on money laundering and maritime protest for merienda. With all my indigestion, I no longer trusted the clean bill given to me after a colonoscopy performed shortly before the bar examinations.

In checking the booklets, I was guided by the answers I submitted to the Bar Chairman, as well as the suggested answers formulated by the UP Law Center Training and Convention Division and the Philippine Association of Law Schools. After I corrected the first 200 booklets, I had to devise a point system, which, to a great extent, enabled me to be fair even in times of attitudinal disturbances brought about by the painful stretching of time and patience, and the

concomitant lack of sleep. Retiring to bed at past midnight and waking up at 4:00 in the morning became a daily routine that, after many months, was bound to take its toll. Many of my friends and relatives remarked at how my positive aura had dwindled, to which I could only offer some lame excuse.

It may be an understatement, but I have said it, and I will say it again without fear of contradiction, that checking the examination booklets was a more agonizingly laborious experience than actually taking the bar. Much of my difficulty lay on the extra time spent deciphering handwriting and grammar. But, encouraged every time by the thought that my own children will be taking the bar in a couple of years or so, I would read an answer over and over again until I am able to make sense of it, and I can give the corresponding point with due consideration to the effort of the examinee, without compromising the standards set for the legal profession. e of the Compulsory Acquisition Program of the CARP; and (2) whether the petition for land conversion of the parcels of land may be granted. On December 7, 1990, the Office of the Secretary, DAR, through the Undersecretary for Operations (Assistant Secretary for Luzon Operations) and the Regional Director of Region IV, submitted a report answering the two issues raised. According to them, firstly, by virtue of the issuance of the notice of coverage on August 11, 1989, and notice of acquisition on December 12, 1989, the property is covered under compulsory acquisition. Secondly, Administrative Order No. 1, Series of 1990, Section IV D also supports the DAR position on the coverage of the said property. During the consideration of the case by the Board, there was no pending petition for land conversion specifically concerning the parcels of land in question. On February 19, 1991, the Board sent a notice of hearing to all the parties interested, setting the hearing for the administrative valuation of the subject parcels of land on March 6, 1991. However, on February 22, 1991, Atty. Ma. Elena P. Hernandez-Cueva, counsel for SRRDC, wrote the Board requesting for its assistance in the reconstruction of the records of the case because the records could not be found as her co-counsel, Atty. Ricardo Blancaflor, who originally handled the case for SRRDC and had possession of all the records of the case was on indefinite leave and could not be contacted. The Board granted counsel's request and moved the hearing to April 4, 1991. On March 18, 1991, SRRDC submitted a petition to the Board for the latter to resolve SRRDC's petition for exemption from CARP coverage before any administrative valuation of their landholding could be had by the Board. On April 4, 1991, the initial DARAB hearing of the case was held and subsequently, different dates of hearing were set without objection from counsel of SRRDC. During the April 15, 1991 hearing,

he Treason and Sedition Law. In other words, as will later appear, we think that the words of the accused did not so much tend to defame, abuse, or insult, a person in authority, as they did to raise a disturbance in the community. In criminal law, there are a variety of offenses which are not directed primarily against individuals, but rather against the existence of the State, the authority of the Government, or the general public peace. The offenses created and defined in Act No. 292 are distinctly of this character. Among them is sedition, which is the raising of commotions or disturbances in the State. It is a revolt against legitimate authority. Though the ultimate object of sedition is a violation of the public peace or at least such a course of measures as evidently engenders it, yet it does not aim at direct and open violence against the laws, or the subversion of the Constitution. (2 Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 974; U.S. vs. Abad [1902], 1 Phil., 437; People vs. Cabrera [1922], 43 Phil., 64.) It is of course fundamentally true that the provisions of Act No. 292 must not be interpreted so as to abridge the freedom of speech and the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for redress of grievances. Criticism is permitted to penetrate even to the foundations of Government. Criticism, no matter how severe, on the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary, is within the range of liberty of speech, unless the intention and effect be seditious. But when the intention and effect of the act is seditious, the constitutional guaranties of freedom of speech and press and of assembly and petition must yield to punitive measures designed to maintain the prestige of constituted authority, the supremacy of the constitution and the laws, and the existence of the State. (III Wharton's Criminal Law, pp. 2127 et seq.; U.S. vs. Apurado [1907], 7 Phil., 422; People vs. Perfecto, supra.) Here, the person maligned by the accused is the Chief Executive of the Philippine Islands. His official position, like the Presidency of the United States and...