Philippines Bar Exams Conclude; Record Turnout, Diverse Examinees

MANILA, Philippines — The final day of the 2026 bar examinations kicked off in various testing centers nationwide on Sunday, September 13. The third and final day of the exams will tackle criminal law, remedial law, legal and judicial ethics with practical exercises. The first day of the examination was held on September 6, which touched on political and public international law, and commercial law and taxation, while the second day, which was held on Wednesday, tackled civil law and land titles and deeds and labor law and social legislation. “It’s not at the level I expected it to be,” a 29-year old bar examinee, who requested anonymity, told Inquirer on the first day of the exam. “It’s difficult, but not extremely difficult.” “It seems like my efforts to study have paid off,” the examinee, a first-timer, also said. The examinee said that she is prepared for the final day of the bar exam. “There’s no feeling that maybe I should stop, maybe I shouldn’t continue during the next days,” she said. “There’s no such feeling that I can’t handle the following exam days,” she continued. “It seems, there’s still that feeling of ‘okay let’s go, we can do this, come on’,” she continued. Associate Justice Samuel Gaerlan, who is also this year’s bar exam chairperson, said the questions are “reasonable.” “It’s reasonable because we won’t take questions that are not covered in the syllabus,” Gaerlan said in a press conference last week. A total of 12,029 examinees showed up in 15 testing centers nationwide on the first day of exams last Sunday, the Supreme Court said. “There was an increase in the number of examinees this year as compared to other years,” Gaerlan said. “I think we have the highest number.” Demographics Majority of candidates are females (6,773 or 56.3 percent) while males accounted for 5,256 or 43.7 percent of the examinees. “If I may share, among the most interesting or the numerous requests that we received this year are moms who would wish to bring breast pumps inside the LTC,” bar head Cheska Pazziuagan said last week. “So, this also shows that we have so many examinees who just gave birth, who are moms, who are wives, and despite those family circumstances and other struggles in life, they still showed up and went to take the bar,” Pazziuagan added. A total of 304 of examinees are persons with disabilities, while 285 are senior citizens. The youngest examinee is 24 years old while the oldest is 84. /gsg