“Show me your resilience before you criticize.”
Former Bar chairperson and Associate Justice Marvic Leonen expressed this remark in response to tweets that claimed this year’s bar exams were easy.
After the exams concluded, the Supreme Court released copies of the questionnaires fielded during the 2020/2021 Bar examinations on its website.
The much-anticipated exams were held last February 4 and 6.
2019 Bar topnotcher Kenneth Manuel previously released some screenshots of the questions on his Twitter account.
All three questions in Taxation for the 2022 Bar. Justice Leonen stayed true to his characterization of the questions that will be fielded. From @lawschool_buddy. pic.twitter.com/wygkCrLYmF
— K Manuel 🍄 (@theklmanuel) February 4, 2022
Some people, however, seemed to belittle the questions as “too easy” as compared to the ones that appeared in the tests in the past years.
Examinees expressed how hurt they were for these comments.
“Someone sent me a message and told me na, ‘Hoy! Ang dali ng exam niyo! Kapag bumagsak ka pa dun, ewan ko na lang.’ You didn’t know the feeling when I was inside the room trying to answer all the bar exam questions while I am having migraine attacks,” a Twitter user said.
On Friday, Leonen defended the Bar examinees from these criticisms.
If you want to minimize the last bar exam as the easiest, I invite you to take your qualifying exam under a pandemic, with all its uncertainties, after a super typhoon, while attending to tragedies in your family, under a new method.
Show me your resilience before you criticize
— Marvic Leonen — maroon check (@marvicleonen) February 10, 2022
He reminded others about the uncertainties of pandemic that the Bar examinees have to go through to hurdle the exams.
“If you want to minimize the last bar exam as the easiest, I invite you to take your qualifying exam under a pandemic, with all its uncertainties, after a super typhoon, while attending to tragedies in your family, under a new method,” Leonen said.
“Show me your resilience before you criticize,” he added.
Leonen further hoped that the public would acknowledge their “grit” instead.
“I do not wish for you to go through what they went through. But they stood their ground. Maybe, better if you acknowledge their grit. Karma exists,” he said.
Other online users similarly mentioned the position of Bar examinees.
“Those who say the recent bar was easy only look at the questions- which, as the bar chair had promised, were basic and straightforward (not easy). They don’t consider the psychological, emotional, social, and financial costs of getting to the point of answering the questions,” a Twitter user said.
“Earnest plea to all law students and lawyers: when the Qs come out, please refrain from making insensitive comments in public (ex: so easy! Even I can answer it). It’s very unsettling to most barristers, even under normal circumstances. This batch has been through enough already,” another Twitter user tweeted.
The recent Bar questionnaires could still be accessed on the SC’s website.
They are categorized as the following:
- The Law Pertaining to the State and its Relationship with Its Citizens
- Criminal Law
- The Law Pertaining to Private, Personal, and Commercial Relations
- Procedure and Professional Ethics
This year’s Bar examinations were the first digitalized and localized licensure test in history.
It also has the biggest batch of Bar applicants due to the test’s cancelation in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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