MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court will be doing a pilot test to computerize the Bar examinations, according to Associate Justice Marvic Leonen.

Leonen is the 2020 Bar chairman, and as such delivered the keynote address during the online oath-taking of 2019 Bar passers on Thursday, June 25. It was not clear whether the pilot test is aimed for implementation for the 2020 Bar.

“I have also been given the go signal to drive a project to examine the various digital platforms for a pilot test in computerizing the Bar, including how applicants answer the exam questions,” Leonen said during the oath-taking.

“This would be a relief to those who would come after you, with writing as bad as many as the justices of the Supreme Court,” said Leonen.

It was earlier announced that the 2020 Bar examinations would be postponed to “sometime in 2021” because of uncertainties over the pandemic. It is traditionally held Sundays of November ever year.

Leonen also said he wanted to “trigger a conversation on the real nature of the Bar and make its practices more reasonable.”

This has been a longtime debate in the legal education, as some experts think law schools turn themselves into Bar schools, aimed mostly at making students pass or top the Bar rather than learning the essence of law and justice.

“The Bar is merely a qualifying examination, not a determinant of how good you will be as a lawyer.  Certainly it will not measure your worth as a person,” said Leonen.

Leonen follows the reforms in the 2019 Bar examinations, where Bar chair Senior Associate Justice Estela Perlas Bernabe revised the syllabus, and removed topics that are obsolete or no longer relevant in the practice.

“It is the intention of the current Bar chair to take a hard look at the various rituals that add unnecessary pressure on the applicants, including the utility of midnight and last-minute tips from well-meaning supporters and the way we evaluate the answers in the examinations and present the results,” said Leonen.

Leonen earlier said he would pitch a pass-or-fail design for Bar results, a departure from the decades-long practice of scoring examinees to the decimal, and making a spectacle out of the Top 10. 

“Soon enough we will make the proper proposals for the consideration of the Court en banc. Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta has ensured that I could work with the next bar chairpersons in order to have a strategic view of the reforms that would happen,” said Leonen. – Rappler.com