SOURCE: Estela Perlas-Bernabe (2010).

Experiencing The Bar A Second Time -

Court of Appeals. Feb 14, 2010. ca.judiciary.gov.ph/index.php?
action=mnuactual_contents&ap=j90120.

The Bar Examinations is the only national test given by the Supreme Court to all
law graduates in the country to determine their passage to the practice of law. It
is given annually on four consecutive Sundays of September, on the following
subjects with the corresponding weights: First Sunday – Political and
International Law (15%) and Labor and Social Legislation (10%); Second Sunday
– Civil Law (15%) and Taxation (10%); Third Sunday – Mercantile Law (15%) and
Criminal Law (10%); Fourth Sunday – Remedial Law (20%) and Legal Ethics and
Practical Exercises (5%). Under the Rules of Court, a bar candidate may be
deemed to have passed his examinations successfully if he has obtained a general
average of 75% in all subjects, without falling below 50% in any subject.

I took the bar examinations – for the first and last time – in 1976 after having
graduated in the same year from the Ateneo College of Law. That may already be
decades ago but the grueling six-month period of arduous mental calisthenics is
forever etched in my memory, easily retrievable by the mere mention of the bar.
My constant prayer then was for the bar examiners to ask fair questions and to be
reasonably considerate in correcting the papers. Little did I know that I would
someday be one of those dreaded examiners, and that I myself would be subject
to the crucible of the standards I had set for them when I was an examinee, and
even more relentlessly. However, I was not prepared for the realization that to be
a bar examiner is a feat far horrendous than the taking of the bar itself.

I had, at the outset, considered it my good fortune to have been handpicked by

Supreme Court Justice Adolfo Azcuna, the Chairman of the 2007 Bar
Examinations, as the examiner in Mercantile Law that year. It was such a rare
opportunity, and I could only commit to giving it all my best. I then wasted no
time gathering all my books and materials relative to the subject, going through
their pages, making notes, and finally framing the required number of questions
and answers, which I reviewed over and over on a laptop that never left my sight
from start to finish. After printing a hard copy of the file and personally handing
it over to the Chairman, I downloaded the file to my USB, erased all traces of the
document from the computer including the garbage bin, and locked the USB in
my vault. It was unquestionably my most valuable possession at that time.

The task of formulating the suggested questions would have been easier if I had
the freedom to consult professors, colleagues, friends and staff. But this was well-
nigh impossible if I were to adhere to the strictest confidentiality required of me.
The fear of a leakage and the consequent scandal hung like Damocles’ sword over
my head. I just had to keep everything to myself for my own peace of mind, and
trusted no one, except my husband out of necessity and for sheer proximity.

I shunned social activities like the plague. I could not trust myself to lie through
my teeth in the unlikely event that I get exposed, especially not to friends whose
children were taking the bar that year. In the few times, however, that I was
obligated to go and was found enmeshed in the usual hullabaloo about the bar, I
was thankful that I was not a target of speculation. I was also not counted among
my colleagues in court as one of the examiners probably because, by a simple
process of elimination, I was the least likely candidate, being relatively new in the
institution. It may also be because I had kept to the letter my regular duties in
court and, thus, was always visible.

I would check some notebooks in the car while on the way and during lulls in the
office. Yes, every minute counts if you had to finish a total of 5,627 booklets
within a time frame of 22 weeks, which translated to 255 booklets a week, or 36 a
day. I chewed negotiable instruments for breakfast, swallowed insurance policies
for lunch, gnawed at stockholder’s appraisal rights for dinner, and picked on
money laundering and maritime protest for merienda. With all my indigestion, I
no longer trusted the clean bill given to me after a colonoscopy performed shortly
before the bar examinations.

In checking the booklets, I was guided by the answers I submitted to the Bar
Chairman, as well as the suggested answers formulated by the UP Law Center
Training and Convention Division and the Philippine Association of Law Schools.
After I corrected the first 200 booklets, I had to devise a point system, which, to a
great extent, enabled me to be fair even in times of attitudinal disturbances
brought about by the painful stretching of time and patience, and the
concomitant lack of sleep. Retiring to bed at past midnight and waking up at 4:00
in the morning became a daily routine that, after many months, was bound to
take its toll.
Many of my friends and relatives remarked at how my positive aura had
dwindled, to which I could only offer some lame excuse.

It may be an understatement, but I have said it, and I will say it again without
fear of contradiction, that checking the examination booklets was a more
agonizingly laborious experience than actually taking the bar. Much of my
difficulty lay on the extra time spent deciphering handwriting and grammar. But,
encouraged every time by the thought that my own children will be taking the bar
in a couple of years or so, I would read an answer over and over again until I am
able to make sense of it, and I can give the corresponding point with due
consideration to the effort of the examinee, without compromising the standards
set for the legal profession.

e of the Compulsory Acquisition Program of the CARP; and (2) whether the petition for land
conversion of the parcels of land may be granted.

On December 7, 1990, the Office of the Secretary, DAR, through the Undersecretary for Operations
(Assistant Secretary for Luzon Operations) and the Regional Director of Region IV, submitted a
report answering the two issues raised. According to them, firstly, by virtue of the issuance of the
notice of coverage on August 11, 1989, and notice of acquisition on December 12, 1989, the
property is covered under compulsory acquisition. Secondly, Administrative Order No. 1, Series of
1990, Section IV D also supports the DAR position on the coverage of the said property. During the
consideration of the case by the Board, there was no pending petition for land conversion specifically
concerning the parcels of land in question.

On February 19, 1991, the Board sent a notice of hearing to all the parties interested, setting the
hearing for the administrative valuation of the subject parcels of land on March 6, 1991. However, on
February 22, 1991, Atty. Ma. Elena P. Hernandez-Cueva, counsel for SRRDC, wrote the Board
requesting for its assistance in the reconstruction of the records of the case because the records
could not be found as her co-counsel, Atty. Ricardo Blancaflor, who originally handled the case for
SRRDC and had possession of all the records of the case was on indefinite leave and could not be
contacted. The Board granted counsel's request and moved the hearing to April 4, 1991.

On March 18, 1991, SRRDC submitted a petition to the Board for the latter to resolve SRRDC's
petition for exemption from CARP coverage before any administrative valuation of their landholding
could be had by the Board.

On April 4, 1991, the initial DARAB hearing of the case was held and subsequently, different dates
of hearing were set without objection from counsel of SRRDC. During the April 15, 1991 hearing,
he Treason and Sedition Law. In other words, as will later appear, we think that the words of the
accused did not so much tend to defame, abuse, or insult, a person in authority, as they did to raise
a disturbance in the community.

In criminal law, there are a variety of offenses which are not directed primarily against individuals,
but rather against the existence of the State, the authority of the Government, or the general public
peace. The offenses created and defined in Act No. 292 are distinctly of this character. Among them
is sedition, which is the raising of commotions or disturbances in the State. It is a revolt against
legitimate authority. Though the ultimate object of sedition is a violation of the public peace or at
least such a course of measures as evidently engenders it, yet it does not aim at direct and open
violence against the laws, or the subversion of the Constitution. (2 Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 974;
U.S. vs. Abad [1902], 1 Phil., 437; People vs. Cabrera [1922], 43 Phil., 64.)

It is of course fundamentally true that the provisions of Act No. 292 must not be interpreted so as to
abridge the freedom of speech and the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the
Government for redress of grievances. Criticism is permitted to penetrate even to the foundations of
Government. Criticism, no matter how severe, on the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary, is
within the range of liberty of speech, unless the intention and effect be seditious. But when the
intention and effect of the act is seditious, the constitutional guaranties of freedom of speech and
press and of assembly and petition must yield to punitive measures designed to maintain the
prestige of constituted authority, the supremacy of the constitution and the laws, and the existence of
the State. (III Wharton's Criminal Law, pp. 2127 et seq.; U.S. vs. Apurado [1907], 7 Phil., 422;
People vs. Perfecto, supra.)

Here, the person maligned by the accused is the Chief Executive of the Philippine Islands. His
official position, like the Presidency of the United States and