Santiago's Bar Exam Result, UP Law Education, and the "Top Ten" Fetish

Recently, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago was target of various attacks on her supposedly arrogance towards Atty. Vitaliano Aguirre of the prosecution team during the Corona impeachment trial. If we have been monitoring news, we may have already heard that Aguirre was cited in contempt after covering his ears during a tirade by Sen. Santiago, which included calling the prosecution team "gago" (stupid) for withdrawing the five of the eight articles of impeachment. While criticized for its perceived non-stellar performance, the "gago" (stupid) comment hurled to the prosecution was deemed by many as uncalled for, which may seemed to have given Aguirre the moral reason to reciprocate. Knowing Filipino's behavior towards perceived arrogance, Santiago must have already expected to be admonished publicly, even if she is simply acting out her extreme intolerance to what she perceives as incompetence.

But what troubled me is the propaganda pic below circulating in Facebook, apparently designed as an offshoot of the release of the 2011 Bar Exam results. It capitalizes on the fact that Aguirre got a higher score than Santiago:

An attack against Sen. Santiago circulating in Facebook. The one above is
circulated by a certain Ma. Stella A. Vizmanos 

The argument of the propaganda pic suffers from many loopholes. For one, difficulty in bar exams varies across the years. Compare, for instance, the 2001 and 2002 bar exams passing rate: 32.89% and 19.68% respectively. But let us leave it at that and focus on the essence: I don't think we should be equating achievement with grades, in law and in any other field. It gives a false impression to lawyers (as well as other students) that getting a high mark in the bar (or in any other exam) makes you a good lawyer (or professional). For all that people rant on her bar grades, Miriam is a recognized international and constitutional law expert. Prior to becoming elected in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), she was in fact a legal officer of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.

This fetish on Bar Exam results as a barometer for a lawyer puts into light another issue, that no student from the University of the Philippines College of Law was able to make it to top ten in the recent Bar Examinations Result.

Corona and the Numbers Game (by Emmanuel Hizon)

Photo by Matikas Santos/INQUIRER.net photo.

Apologists of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona asserted that they are not only winning the battle in the impeachment court but also the one that is being waged in the streets. This assertion stemmed from an alleged 7,000-strong pro-Corona mobilization that was held not long ago in front of the Supreme Court, and of late, a mammoth evangelical rally held at Luneta, which they said outnumbered all previous anti-Corona mobilizations organized by the different anti-corruption groups.

Minority action, one-dimensional

At first glance, the “big” pro-Corona rally held last February 8, 2012 in Padre Faura, which defenders of the chief justice boast and brand as the "true voice" of the public is somewhat impressive. But in retrospect, one can see that the said event is the action of a minority. Of course, the action of a minority is not necessarily wrong, that is not the intention of this piece. Rather, it wants to deconstruct the perception that is being peddled by Corona's spin masters that they are winning the numbers game in the streets.