AFTER two postponements, the Bar examination pushed through on Friday, with more than 11,000 examinees participating in 31 testing sites.

Bar chairman and Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Leonen said that 11,378 took the exams out of the 11,790 who paid application fees.

The second day will be on Sunday, Feb. 6.

It was the first time that the Bar exams were held in multiple venues. It was shortened to two days instead of four, and conducted digitally with examinees bringing their own laptops and downloading questions from a secured online application.

At least 12 examinees were allowed to take the examination in the traditional handwritten format.

One examinee afflicted with a disease that disabled his hands was allowed to take the exam with the aid of a stenographer who will encode his answers.

“Easily, this is the largest batch of bar examinees and it is the batch that would fulfill the lack of new lawyers that happened during the last two years because of the pandemic,” Leonen said.

Those who were fully vaccinated underwent antigen tests 48 hours before the first examination while the unvaccinated had to present a negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test result taken within 72 hours before the examination.

Leonen said about 115 examinees turned out positive for Covid19.

“The news swirling in social media is not accurate. Just because you tested positive does not necessarily mean you are not allowed to enter [the testing sites],” he said.

He explained that following the Department of Health and local government unit guidelines, a person who tested positive and had properly isolated for seven days for the vaccinated and 14 to 21 days for the unvaccinated are allowed to enter the testing sites.

The exam was supposed to be held on January 16, 23, 30, and February 6 but was shortened and rescheduled to January 23 and 25 because of the pandemic and the effects of Typhoon Odette.

The University of Santo Tomas’ law dean, Nilo Divina, lauded the Bar examinees for “progressing immensely” despite the challenges brought by the pandemic.

“I speak for everyone when I say, the past 2 years is far from the comfort zone. It is out there in the war zone. It seems it has posed on us a daily war for survival, a daily win against not contracting Covid19, a daily exercise of finding hope in a dark time for the whole world,” Divina wrote on Facebook.

“Right here, right now, you are no ordinary persons and you are for sure not the same persons you were two years ago,” he added.

Divina urged the examinees to “trust God.”

“I am here to remind you: trust your training. Trust your state of preparedness. Trust your character muscles. Believe in yourself,” he said.

“But most of all, trust in God. He has carried you through many adversities. He has lifted you up from many burdens. He will not fail you,” he added.