BACOLOD City – Rep. Greg Gasataya filed a House resolution that would extend a congressional commendation to Mark John Simondo.
The 31-year-old Simondoof Barangay 33 topped the 2017 Bar Examination with a passing rate of 91.05 percent, based on the results that the Supreme Court released on April 26.
Simondo, also a registered nurse, completed his law degree at the University of St. La Salle-Bacolod.
Gasataya, who filed the resolution on Monday, stressed that the Bar Examination is among the “most difficult – if the most difficult – licensure examinations in the Philippines.”
He added thatSimondo “deserves to be recognized and applauded” for breaching the 90-percent mark in the Bar Exam after 16 years.
In 2002, Arlene Maneja of the University of Santo Tomas got a passing rate of 92.9 percent.
Last year, a total of 7,227 initially took the exam but only 6,750 managed to complete it.
Of the 6,748, only 1,724 examinees passed, or 25.54 percent of the total examinees.
The Bar Exam was taken at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila during the four Sundays of November.
The exam has eight focus subjects – Political Law and Labor Law, Civil Law and Taxation, Mercantile Law and Criminal Law, Remedial Law and Legal Ethics, and Practical Exercises./PN
