Supreme Court should administer law school entrance exam — lawyer

A group challenging the Philippine Law School Admission Test (Philsat) on Tuesday suggested it is the Supreme Court (SC), not the Legal Education Board (LEB), that should administer a law school entrance exam, a proposition that raised concerns on practicality and academic freedom.

The justices heard oral arguments on petitions assailing the constitutionality of the law that created the LEB, the body that supervises the Philsat.

A group composed of law students and another led by retired judge Oscar Pimentel argue in their petitions that the 1987 Constitution grants only the SC the power to promulgate rules on the admission to the practice of law, which they contend includes legal education.

Lawyer Errol Comafay, Jr.,  who is with the Pimentel group, told Associate Justice Jose Reyes, Jr. that the LEB should be abolished because it was "created by an unconstitutional law."

"We believe that legal education is necessarily included in the practice of law," Comafay said.

For her part, Karla Marie Tumulak, lawyer for the law students' group, said they are "not against" the idea of a law school admission test, but take issue with the LEB not being "answerable" to the SC.

"The only problem is you don't want LEB to do it, you want the SC to do it," Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio asked Tumulak.

"Because you say it's our constitutional duty to administer the law admission test for law schools and we have been in dereliction of our duty since 1935 and it's time we perform our constitutional duty, correct?" he asked, to which the young lawyer said, "Unfortunately, yes, Your Honor."

When Associate Justice Jose Reyes Jr. raised the difficulty for the SC to administer the exam when it is mainly engaged in adjudication, Tumulak suggested the creation of a body that can run the test.

When asked, former Ateneo De Manila University law school dean Sedfrey Candelaria also agreed it may be "impractical" for the High Court to supervise more than 100 law schools.

Meanwhile, Associate Justice Francis Jardeleza warned the petitioners to "be careful what you pray for."

"If you ask the Court to be the one to exercise the power, you also don't know among these 15 magistrates, they may have standards, for example, higher than the LEB," he said.

Academic freedom

On the other hand, Associate Justice Marvic Leonen discussed that the law school admission test itself may infringe upon academic freedom, particularly the right of law schools to determine who they can teach.

"Is it possible that Philsat is unconstitutional not because of the authority that granted it but because intrinsically it may affect academic freedom, is that not correct?" Leonen asked Candelaria, who was invited by the court as an expert on the matter.

"That is my position, Your Honor," the former dean told the justice, himself a former dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law.

For his part, Solicitor General Jose Calida, who represents the government, said the judiciary has never regulated legal education and that he was against placing the LEB under the SC's supervision.

At the end of the oral arguments, Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin required the parties to submit their memoranda, or summation of arguments, within 20 days. — BM, GMA News