Aspacio, Marcus Napoleon D.

Position Paper on PhiLSAT Constitutionality

The Philippine Law School Admission Test (PhiLSAT) is a standardized test for aspiring
law students in the Philippines.1 It was created by the Legal Education Board (LEB) pursuant to
its power to prescribe minimum standards for law school admission under Sec. 7(e) of Republic
Act No. 7662, or the “Legal Education Reform Act of 1993”, and through the LEB’s Memorandum
Order No. 7 Series of 2016, the PhiLSAT became a prerequisite for admission to any law school.2
Consequently, the first PhiLSAT was held on April 16, 2017 in 7 cities around the Philippines,3
however, a petition which challenges the constitutionality of the test was filed against the LEB on
April 7 that same year.4 This now brings the question as to whether or not the PhiLSAT is
unconstitutional.

It is my position that the PhiLSAT is unconstitutional and illegal. According to Art. VIII,
Sec. 5(5) of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines, the Supreme Court shall have the power to
promulgate rules concerning the admission to the practice of law and the Integrated Bar,5 and
through this constitutional provision, the Supreme Court promulgated Rule 138 of the Rules of
Court which provides for the rules regarding Attorneys and Admission to Bar.6 LEB’s
Memorandum Order No. 7 Series of 2016, which required passing the PhiLSAT in order to enter
law school, clearly violates Art. VIII, Sec. 5(5) of the Constitution by creating a standardized test,
which essentially creates or adds another requirement for the admission to the practice of law,
because it encroaches upon the constitutional mandate of the Supreme Court to promulgate rules
with regard to the admission to the practice of law.

The PhiLSAT is also in violation of Art. XIV, Sec. 1 of the Constitution which states that
“The State shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels and

1
Background on PhiLSAT, Center for Educational Domain (Mar. 09, 2019, 4:48AM),
https://www.philsat.com.ph/background-philsat.
2
Id.
3
PhiLSAT: Entrance Exam for Aspiring Law Students Starts this Year, ABS-CBN Corporation (Mar. 09, 2019,
5:06AM), https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/02/03/17/philsat-entrance-exam-for-aspiring-law-students-starts-this-year.
4
Ma. Consuelo Marquez & Maria Crisanta Paloma, UST Prof Questions Legality of Legal Education Board, Law
Admission Exam, The Varsitarian (Mar. 09, 2019, 5:46AM), https://varsitarian.net/news/20170428/ust-prof-
questions-legality-of-legal-education-board-law-admission-exam
5
CONST. art VIII, §5, ¶5
6
Rules of Court, Rule 138
shall take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all”.7 In this case, the right of
aspiring law students to quality education and its accessibility is impaired by the PhiLSAT. First
of all, one must first apply online and pay a fee of P1,000 through the Bank of the Philippine
Islands (BPI) or through credit card to be able to take the PhiLSAT.8,9 This is prejudicial to aspiring
law students who live in rural areas where access to the internet is difficult. According to a 2014
study, “households in the provincial areas, rural localities, and those who belong to lower socio-
economic classes are less likely to own a computer and have internet connection” compared to
those in the cities and higher socio-economic classes.10 It would also be difficult for applicants
where BPI branches are too far; they would have to travel to the city or ask friends or relatives
living near one branch to have to pay for them. The P1,000 fee could also take away the opportunity
and deter aspiring law students from the less privileged classes from being admitted in a law school
as they would have to find the means to pay for the fee first. There is also the issue wherein the
LEB only has 9 cities where applicants can take the exams, namely: Metro Manila, Baguio City,
Legazpi City, Iloilo City, Cebu City, Tacloban City, Davao City, Cagayan de Oro City, and
Zamboanga City.11 This issue is unfavorable even to aspiring law students from well-off families
as long as they live far from one of the given testing locations, what more for the less privileged
students? Thus, the current implementation of the PhiLSAT is in violation of the provision in Art.
XIV of the Constitution.

Aside from the two Constitutional provisions, the PhiLSAT is also in violation of Art. 2 of
the New Civil Code (NCC) of the Philippines which states that “laws shall take effect 15 days after
the completion of its publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation,
unless otherwise provided”.12 The Court has had the opportunity to fully and clearly discuss this
provision in the case of Tañada vs. Tuvera wherein the Court held that this provision serves “to
give the general public adequate notice of the various laws” and that “without such notice and
publication, there would be no basis for the application of the maxim “ignorantia legis non

7
CONST. art XIV, §1
8
PhiLSAT Testing Fee, Center for Educational Domain (Mar. 09, 2019, 4:49AM),
https://www.philsat.com.ph/philsat-testing-fee
9
Payment Procedure, Center for Educational Domain (Mar. 09, 2019, 4:49AM),
https://www.philsat.com.ph/payment-procedure
10
Iremae D. Labucay, Patterns of Internet Usage in the Philippines, The Internet and the Google Age: Prospects and
Perils 27, 47 (2014)
11
PhiLSAT Home, Center for Educational Domain (Mar. 09, 2019, 4:48AM), https://www.philsat.com.ph
12
CIVIL CODE, art. 2.
excusat”.13 The Court declared in that case that all unpublished presidential issuances shall have
no binding force and effect.14 Consequently, other laws and statutes that should be unpublished
will also have no binding force and effect. It has been held by the Court that the term “laws” under
Art. 2 of the NCC “refer to all laws and not only those of general application” and that “all statutes,
including those of local application and private laws, shall be published as a condition for their
effectivity”.15 Because the Memorandum Order of the LEB has the force of law, it should have
first been published pursuant to Art. 2 of the NCC. The LEB never complied with the publication
requirement given by law, even the publication in a newspaper of general circulation was not
complied with, therefore making the Memorandum Order void.

All in all, the LEB’s objective to create a standardized test to have a higher standard and
better quality of law students is “quite noble”, as Dean Divina said. 16 However, noble as it may,
the implementation as well as the process in which it came to be is contradictory to our Constitution
and laws, had it been the proper authorities who oversaw its creation and implementation, then we
would not have had any issues. It could definitely help in increasing the quality of law students in
the country, but it is currently doing more harm than good to a lot of aspiring law students. It has
not taken into account the effort needed for the students from far flung areas to just to apply and
take the test, and after all the effort, they still lose their dream of becoming lawyers or at least
studying in law school if they fail. As Justice Carpio stated in the oral arguments last Mar. 5, 2019,
LSAT results does not bar anyone from studying in law school, it only serves as a guide for law
schools on who they should admit.17 To reiterate Art. XIV, Sec. 1 of the Constitution, “the State
shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels and shall take
appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all” and at the moment, to remove the
PhiLSAT is the appropriate step to make legal education accessible to all.

13
Tañada vs. Tuvera 136 SCRA 27 (1985)
14
Id.
15
Tañada vs. Tuvera 146 SCRA 446 (1986)
16
Ma. Consuelo Marquez & Maria Crisanta Paloma, UST Prof Questions Legality of Legal Education Board, Law
Admission Exam, The Varsitarian (Mar. 09, 2019, 5:46AM), https://varsitarian.net/news/20170428/ust-prof-
questions-legality-of-legal-education-board-law-admission-exam
17
Mike Navallo, SC Weighs Validity of Nationalized Law School Qualifying Exam PhiLSAT, ABS-CBN
Corporation (Mar. 09, 2019, 5:07AM), https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/06/19/sc-weighs-validity-of-nationalized-
law-school-qualifying-exam-philsat