Scores of bar topnotchers to be displayed, SC clarifies
The announcement by the Supreme Court of the bar results on Friday will be “exactly the same” as in previous years with the names of those who passed, as well as the topnotchers and their scores to be displayed publicly on wide screen at its compound in Padre Faura, Manila.
Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo made the clarification after the high court earlier this week released the guidelines on requests for disclosure of a law school’s bar exam performance, which indicated that the scores of individual bar takers could not be given without the consent of the examinees themselves.
“That resolution was specifically addressed because certain law schools would want to, I think, to study, how they performed during the bar exams. So they want data from us,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
Gesmundo said these law schools were told that the high tribunal would provide a specific type of data but not the personal details (names, scores) of the bar exam takers. However, that restriction that would not apply to the Supreme Court itself when disclosing the results of the bar, he added.
Allowed data
Based on the high tribunal’s guidelines released on Monday, permissible data includes the number or percentage of the law school’s graduates categorized by type (new examinees, previous takers, refreshers); the number or percentage of graduates within specific score ranges; the average score of all graduates in each bar subject; and the overall average general weighted average for law schools with multiple examinees.
The same rules noted that bar exam scores of individual takers were “sensitive personal information under the Data Privacy Act,” which meant they would not be disclosed without prior consent.
The high court said it may approve requests from law schools for their bar exam scores, as long as these scores were aggregated, averaged or anonymized and do not identify any individual examinee.
In addition, anonymized scores of each bar taker, with all identifiers removed, may also be revealed.
