The Cat In The Yard Passed the 2007 Bar Exams

Now, I don’t need to lick myself profusely! I passed the 2007 bar exams. The storm of my life is over and a new horizon is open before me. Yesterday was the longest and the most heart-stopping moment of my life. Me and my wife slowly scrolled down the list of 2007 bar passers. And while we were slowly scrolling it, we stopped breathing. We leaped in tears and joy when we saw my name. I couldn’t believe my eyes! My name was there! I read it a number of times, i even turned off, reboot my laptop and accessed the Supreme Court website just to make sure that my name was indeed included. I felt so happy and relieved. Now I don’t need to memorize the law anymore, I just need to understand it more deeply and profoundly. When you are preparing for the bar (the Philippine bar) you must memorize certain provisions and key phrases of the law not just to understand them. You have to adopt the language of the law in order to have your answers wrapped with legal flavor.

I felt a certain sadness also later into the night knowing that some of my classmates did not make it. How many times I said to myself that it could have been me. I could have been languishing in depression or self-pity right now. There could have been no celebration and joyful greetings by relatives and friends but only a scurrying into the night, hiding, hoping that the night of defeat and shame be over in an instant. The Lord has indeed heard my prayers and it made me more humble since I could not with all honesty say that I am in anyway more intelligent than those who did not make it. For me, it was just simply an answered prayer. I give back to God the glory and honor due Him. Praise be your name Lord Jesus!

The Passing Percentage: The Statistic of Doom

So they’re pegging the passing percentage to 10% – 17%. That’s just about 580 to 986 passers. Now I’m licking myself more. Why is this little peace of mathematical figure so dreadful? I’ll tell you why it is so dreadful. It is dreadful because the slimmer the figures the more you think that you are not included in it. Your mind just auto-calculate the possibilities of you being included and the slot machine give you the numbers 0-0-0-0. There are just too many bright cats than you that you just can’t be included in the slim figures. Who knows.

Who is responsible for the figures anyway? Why are there thousands of carcasses lying on the ground yearly? The figures are created by two factors: the examinees and the examiners. Many examinees just coast along during the review period that they cook themselves halfbake during the exams. Many lack the proper game plan to prim themselves up for the bar. So they perform poorly. The examiners on the other hand, succumb from time to time to their frailties-they let their emotions run wild while they were checking. Some examiners metaphorphose to some wild tasmanian devils, scrawling the testbooklets angrily with thrift scores. I don’t really know whether this is true but I’ve heard stories bout examiners who got mad over faulty grammars and bad handwritings, as well as examiners who check the test booklets on a full moon (mood swings). So when the emotions cooks up to the boiling point, watch out testbooklets for some blood dripping scores.

However, there is a consolation part in this process. The Supreme Court en banc may sustain a higher percentage in an en banc session. This is like a buffer to the low passing percentage. The justices may decide to give bonus points across the board or leniency in one killer subject (in this 2007 bar exams, there are many killer subjects as rumoured). So, if the initial passing percentage is peg at 10%-17%, the same can still go up high by the en banc session. This is where prayers matter. God still play a big part in this whole process.

The following are the statistics on the Bar exams results for the past seven years:

Year
Total Number of Examinees
Total Number of Those Who Passed
Percentage

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%

So in the meantime, lets just lick our way through this day.

Frantic Licking: The Judgment Day

Today I’m licking myself more profusely. Pardon the redundancy. Today is the Judgment Day; the Supreme Court is going to announce the result of the 2007 bar exams at 6 p.m. today! How do I feel? I feel like an embalmed cat (iring gi ligate). My heart sticks in my chest. I have never sigh a thousand times in my life till now. My face is ash fallen. My tongue stick to the roof of my mouth (but I manage to unstuck it if I lick my fur). This is now the exact physical representation of torture.

But if I really think about it, I should not be feeling this way. I should have more or less know the result based on my performance in the bar exams itself. How did I perform then? I prepared myself the best I could; I got sick studying for the bar. I started preparing the summer before the start of my fourth year in law school. Though I was not able to read my reviewers literally five times as someone suggested, I sure have read the basic concepts a number of times.

During the exams, I felt I have done satisfactorily, although all my confidence went down the drain when I started reading some of the answers on some bar exam forum. But if I assess myself based on how I have fared in an ordinary law school exams (even those times when I was still in Ateneo), I think I did well. I answered the questions as best as I could formulate the answers. I wrote drafts on the questionaires before I wrote the final answer on the test booklets. I reviewed my answers. I think I have done what I should have done. But of course, I know this is not a guarantee for a favorable result. It is the Lord whom I trust; in His grace I depend.

Right after the last subject in the bar, my worries began. I’m a cat who loves to worry. Not that I intentionally worry, it happens automatically. I just worry. I could not help it. I worry about many things; I worry about what others may say. I worry about how to face the eventual outcome of all this. I worry about whether I could still pick myself up. The more I worry, the more I lick myself. Thanks be to God in Christ Jesus. I can cast my cares upon Him for He cares for me. In all my anxieties, I can pray and make request to my Lord.

Now I still have worries, but I am standing on my faith. I can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength. A thousand may fall on my side, ten thousand at my right hand, but it shall not come neart me. The Lord opens my eyes to let me see the many chariots and warriors on my side. He is my ever present help in this time of trouble. Thank you Lord, forever. Amen!

The Judgment Day (Release of the 2007 Philippine Bar exams result)

Many call it “the judgmet day”. It feels that way too if you are one of those waiting for the bar exams result. Your life is on a stand still while you are waiting, and on the day of the result, your life is either totally shattered or exhilirated to the fullest. These are two way extremes. Either of these two is the inevitable outcome.

How do i feel about the coming bar exam result? I’ll tell you what i feel. I’m just a cat in the yard but I feel all these bar exams pressure cooking. This waiting for the result is cooking me to death. I feel like i’m in a big pot of boiling water with some naked spear-holding bagobos dancing around me; throwing some spices on the boiling pot while they were chanting.

I feel a lump on my throath, a brick on my stomach and most of the time, i stare blankly at a wall or somebody’s face. I could not even think of a plan after the JUDGEMENT DAY. There are no plans for me. This is a one way trip. I must pass the bar. My fur and my tail stand stiff, I look like an embalmed cat in some zoology class laboratory.

I daily visit some blogs or forums about the bar exams result. Its no surprise to find out I’m not alone in this pressure cooking thing. With the comments I read, I reckoned, there are more embalmed looking cats like me. Their furs and tails stand stiff. They too look like some experiment in a zoology class laboratory.

Don’t let me tell you about how other waiting cats predict the passing percentage and the date of the results. There are just too many conflicting hearsays one could read. And they are posted one after the other – the conflicting comments are piled on top of the other. One comments that the result will be released on friday and immediately right after that, another comment says that its going to be tonight. Some even say that it will be on April and all of them backed up their posts as coming from reliable sources. So, if youre a cat in the yard like me, with no Supreme Court insider’s info to brag about, your fur and tail continually stiffs with every conflicting posts there is.

For now, I think I’ll chill out in my favorite fence and just watch all other lickers lick the forum with their posts. Sometimes i am tempted to throw my licks from time to time, but i resolved to just watch and read their posts just for now until the JUDGMENT DAY. I’d like to be able to breath the cool summer breeze and watch the forest from a distance, and silently thank the Lord for His hand in all of these pressure cooking. He is in control of everything, this I know.