Girl who lost family in typhoon tops Philippine lawyers’ licensure exam

A graduate of the San Beda College of Law topped the 2014 Bar exams, according to much-anticipated results announced Thursday. But before becoming the Red Lions’ pride, Irene Mae Alcobilla was the brave political science student at the West Visayas State University who managed to graduate magna cum laude despite losing her mother and brother when Typhoon Frank swept their house away in Antique province in 2009. When she came home after the typhoon, her father, who survived after clinging on a tree for hours, was in the hospital. One of her former professors recounted that Alcobilla had to miss about 5 weeks of classes during her senior year because of the disaster. The 2014 Bar exams had a passing rate of 18.82% – only 1,126 out of 5,984 examinees hurdled what’s reputed to be one of the hardest licensure exams in the Philippines. (See the full list of passers here.)

Read Alcobilla’s full story on Rappler.