THE NEW Lawyer’s Oath mandates that a member of the bar “shall do no falsehood nor shall pervert the law to unjustly favor or prejudice anyone” and “shall faithfully discharge the duties and responsibilities to the best of ability, with integrity and utmost civility.”
This should be a reminder to the 3,812 law graduates who successfully passed the 2023 Bar exams that the profession is a privilege burdened with conditions bestowed by law through the Supreme Court.
The results of the September 2023 Bar Exams were released on December 5, 2023, where successful examinees comprise 36.77 percent of the 10,387 takers. Last year’s Bar exams produced 3,992 successful examinees out of 9,183 takers, or 43.47 percent.
The 2023 Bar Examinations were held on September 17, 20, and 24, 2023, the third to be held digitally with multiple (14) testing sites spread out across the National Capital Region, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
Of the 2023 Bar exam top 20, five were from the University of the Philippines with 89.45 percent passing rate for first-time takers and 88.35 percent for overall takers (235 out of 266).
Among the group of biggest schools or those with over 100 takers, Ateneo De Manila University had the highest passing rate at 93.18 percent, followed by San Beda at 90.07 percent, UP at 88.35 percent, University of San Carlos at 83.89 percent, and the University of Santo Tomas at 72.39 percent. These schools also had the same ranking for the 2022 bar exams.
This year also marks the 25th year of our Bar exams. I was among the lucky 1,465 examinees out of the 3,697 examinees that passed (or 39.63 percent) in the 1998 Bar exams held in DLSU.
The highest passing rate was the 1954 Bar where 75.17 percent passed.
The lowest was in 1999 with 16.59 percent with a total number of 660 successful examinees. My bar buddy and former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay was the topnotcher.
Bar membership may be withdrawn due to the lawyer’s lack of essential qualifications including honesty, fidelity, and integrity as enshrined in the lawyer’s oath.
Ultimately, being a good lawyer is a different thing as passing the bar is not enough. It is never the measure of the decency, honesty, integrity and intelligence of a lawyer.
Disciplinary proceedings are a means of protecting the administration of justice by requiring those who carry out important function in the judicial system to be competent, honorable and reliable men in whom courts and clients may repose confidence.
The primary purposes of disciplinary proceedings are to protect the public, to foster public confidence in the Bar, to preserve the integrity of the profession, and to deter other lawyers from similar misconduct.
Erring lawyers may be penalized either by suspension or disbarment for any violation of the oath, a patent disregard of one’s duties, or an odious deportment unbecoming of an attorney.
In case of suspension, the period would range from one year to indefinite suspension.
Disbarment is imposed where the misconduct and unrepentant demeanor shows a serious flaw in his character and the outright defiance of established norms that put the legal profession in disrepute and place the integrity of the administration of justice in peril.
In Villatuya v. Tabalingcos, (676 SCRA 37), the lawyer entered into marriage twice while his first marriage was still subsisting. The Court declared that he exhibited a deplorable lack of that degree of morality required of him as a member of the Bar. He made a mockery of marriage, a sacred institution demanding respect and dignity.
In Artates v. Atty. Meinrado Enrique Bello (A.C. No. 13466 January 11, 2023), the lawyer was given a six-month suspension after he failed to inform complainant of the unfavorable decision issued by the Labor Arbiter. His negligence caused material damage to complainant as she was precluded from perfecting her appeal before the National Labor Relations Commission.
In Jumalon v. Atty. Elmer dela Rosa (A.C. No. 9288 January 31, 2023), a disbarred lawyer sold the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program-awarded property received by the complainant’s deceased husband without their knowledge. He also failed to account all the money and property and keep the clients’ funds separate and apart from those of his own. He was adjudged to be ineligible for judicial clemency.
The Court reminds the members of the Bar that once they take up the cause of their clients, they are duty bound to serve these clients with competence, and to attend to their cause with diligence, care, and devotion regardless of whether the lawyers accepted the cases for a fee or for free.
A lawyer must at no time be wanting in probity and moral fiber, which are not only conditions precedent to his entrance to the Bar, but are likewise essential demands for his or her continued membership in it.
Lawyers, as professionals, are expected to uphold the ethical and moral values that are said to be essential to the fabric that holds society together.
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“Peyups” is the moniker of University of the Philippines. Atty. Dennis R. Gorecho heads the seafarers’ division of the Sapalo Velez Bundang Bulilan law offices. For comments, e-mail info@sapalovelez.com, or call 0917-5025808 or 0908-8665786./PN
