BAR TAKERS AND LAWYERS. Lawyers join bar examinees after Day 1 of the two-day 2020/2021 Bar Examinations at the University of Saint La Salle testing center in Bacolod City on Friday (Feb. 4, 2022). This year's edition is the first regionalized Bar Examinations due to the Covid-19 pandemic and also the first to use the digitalized exam program Examplify.(Photo courtesy of Carla Canet) BACOLOD CITY - With the start of the 2020/2021 Bar Examinations on Friday, Executive Judge Raymond Joseph Javier of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) here has expressed hopes that examinees from this city will emerge as topnotchers. "I am praying that (examinees from) one of our law schools here will make it to the Top 10, if not the number one," Javier said in an interview. The University of Saint La Salle (USLS), whose law graduate Mark John Simondo topped the 2017 Bar Examinations, is the designated local testing center in this city. The two-day 2020/2021 Bar Examinations, with Day 2 scheduled on Sunday, is the first regionalized test for aspiring lawyers in the country due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, and also the first to use the digitalized exam program Examplify. In Bacolod, there are 169 examinees, including 40 from USLS and the rest from University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos and other areas. "The first innovation brought by today's Bar Examinations is, it is fully computerized. It's a complete departure from the old notebook, pen and paper (test). At the same time, this is the first that the questionnaires will be downloaded from the internet. It is the Bar Examinations perhaps of the future," Javier said. During the 2017 Bar Examinations, Simondo became the first topnotcher in 15 years to breach the 90 percent mark. The Supreme Court released the results on April 26, 2018, with Simondo clinching the top rank with a rating of 91.05 percent. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court Bar Bulletin 37, series of 2022 on Covid-19 protocols stated that fully vaccinated examinees were required to obtain a negative rapid antigen test result within 48 hours before 4 a.m. on Friday. Those who tested positive were still allowed to undergo a confirmatory RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) test, however, where local governments deem a positive antigen test result as conclusive, these examinees were barred from entering the testing sites. (PNA) }