THE four-Sunday Bar exams for this year started yesterday with 7,227 law graduates admitted to take the tests administered at the University of Sto. Tomas in Manila. The Office of the Bar Confidant said the number of this year’s examinees is higher than the 6,831 in 2016. The 2017 Bar, the 116th in the Philippines, is chaired by Associate Justice Lucas P. Bersamin, while the Bar Confidant is Atty. Ma. Cristina B. Layusa, according to a statement released yesterday by the Supreme Court Public Information Office. “Statistics released by the Office of the Bar Confidant showed that for the 2017 bar examinations, a total of 7,270 filed their applications; of this number 13 were denied admission to the bar by the Court for various reasons. Of the 7,257 admitted candidates, 30 withdrew their applications before the conduct of the bar, leaving 7,227 admitted candidates,” it noted. Last year, 477 of the 6,831 admitted examinees did not show up on the first Sunday of the exams. — Andrea Louise E. San Juan
