CASE DIGEST: PIMENTEL vs. LEB G.R. NO.

230642 & 242954. September 10, 2019

FACTS: 
Petitioners in this case assail the unconstitutionality of R.A.
7662 or the Legal Education Reform Act of 1993 which creates
the Legal Education Board. Petitioners particularly seek to
declare as unconstitutional the creation of LEB itself, LEB
issuances and memorandums establishing law practice
internship as a requirement for taking the bar based on Sec. 7 (g)
of RA 7662, adopting a system of continuing legal education
based on Sec. 2 (2) and Sec. 7 (h) of RA 7662, and establishing
and implementing the nationwide law school aptitude test
known as the Philippine Law School Admission Test or the
PhilSAT pursuant to LEB’s power to “prescribe the minimum
standards for law admission” under Sec. 7 (e) of RA 7662.
Petitioners principally grounded the petitions on LEB’s alleged
encroachment upon the rulemaking power of the Court
concerning the practice of law, violation of institutional
academic freedom, and violation of law school aspirant’s right
to education under the Constitution.
ISSUES:
1. Whether the regulation and supervision of legal education
belong to the Court.
2. Whether the requirement of internship for admission to Bar
Examination embodied in LEB Memorandum pursuant to Sec.
7(g) of RA 7662 is unconstitutional.
3. Whether the adoption of system of continuing legal education
embodied in LEB Memorandum pursuant to Sec. 2(2) and Sec.
7(h) of RA 7662 is unconstitutional.
4. Whether the establishment of PhilSAT embodied in LEB
Memorandum pursuant to Sec. 7(e) of RA 7662 is
unconstitutional.
RULING: 
1. NO. Regulation and supervision of legal education had been
historically and consistently exercised by the political
departments. The historical development of statutes on
education unerringly reflects the consistent exercise by the
political departments of the power to supervise and regulate all
levels and areas of education, including legal education. Legal
education is but a composite of the entire Philippine education
system. It is perhaps unique because it is a specialized area of
study. This peculiarity, however, is no reason in itself to
demarcate legal education and withdraw it from the regulatory
and supervisory powers of the political branches. 
Two principal reasons militate against the proposition that the
Court has the regulation and supervision of legal education:
First, it assumes that the court, in fact, possesses the power to
supervise and regulate legal education as a necessary
consequence of its power to regulate admission to the practice of
law. This assumption, apart from being manifestly contrary to
the history of legal education in the Philippines, is likewise
devoid of legal anchorage.
Second, the Court exercises only judicial functions and it
cannot, and must not, arrogate upon itself a power that is not
constitutionally vested to it, lest the Court itself violates the
doctrine of separation of powers. For the Court to void RA 7662
and thereafter, to form a body that regulates legal education and
place it under its supervision and control, as what petitioners
suggest, is to demonstrate a highly improper form of judicial
activism. 
As it is held, the Court’s exclusive rule making power under the
Constitution covers the practice of law and not the study of law.
The present rules embodied in the 1997 Rules of Court do not
support the argument that the Court directly and actually
regulates legal education, it merely provides academic
competency requirements for those who would like to take the
Bar. Furthermore, it is the State in the exercise of its police
power that has the authority to regulate and supervise the
education of its citizens and this includes legal education.

2. YES. This requirement unduly interferes with the exclusive

jurisdiction of the Court to promulgate rules concerning the
practice of law and admissions thereto. The jurisdiction to
determine whether an applicant may be allowed to take the bar
examinations belongs to the Court. Under Sec. 7(g), the power
of the LEB is no longer confined within the parameters of legal
education but now dabbles on the requisites for admissions to
the bar. This is direct encroachment upon the Court’s exclusive
authority to promulgate rules concerning admissions to the bar
and should, therefore, be struck down as unconstitutional.
3. YES. By its plain language, the clause “continuing legal
education” unduly give the LEB the power to supervise the legal
education of those who are already members of the bar.
Inasmuch as the LEB is authorized to compel mandatory
attendance of practicing lawyers in such courses and for such
duration as the LEB deems necessary, the same encroaches upon
the Court’s power to promulgate rules concerning the Integrated
Bar which includes the education of Lawyer-professors as the
teaching of law is considered the practice of law.
4. YES. Accordingly, the Court recognizes the power of the
LEB under its charter to prescribe minimum standards for law
admission. The PhilSAT, when administered as an aptitude test
to guide law schools in measuring the applicant’s aptness for
legal education along with such other admissions policy that the
law school may consider, is such minimum standard. However,
the PhilSAT presently operates not only as a measure of an
applicant’s aptitude for law school. The PhilSAT, as a pass or
fail exam, dictates upon law schools who among the examinees
are to be admitted to any law program. When the PhilSAT is
used to exclude, qualify, and restrict admissions to law schools,
as its present design mandates, the PhilSAT goes beyond mere
supervision and regulation, violates institutional academic
freedom, becomes unreasonable and therefore, unconstitutional.
This case brief summarizes the ruling of the Supreme Court concerning the
constitutionality of the Philippine Law School Admission Test (PhiLSAT) in the
case of Oscar B. Pimentel, et al. v. Legal Education Board and Jose Lean L.
Abayata, et al. v. Hon. Salvador Medialdea and Legal Education Board.[1]
ADVERTISEMENT
REPORT THIS AD

On September 10, 2019, the Supreme Court en banc in Pimentel v. LEB struck

down Sec. 9 of LEBMO No. 7, Series of 2016, as void and unconstitutional.
Specifically, the majority opinion penned by Justice Jose C. Reyes, Jr., the
Honorable Supreme Court ruled that when the PhiLSAT is used
to exclude, qualify and restrict admissions to law schools, the PhiLSAT goes
beyond mere supervision and regulation and violates institutional academic
freedom for being unconstitutional. Hence, in the dispositive portion of the
ponencia, Sec. 9 of LEBMO No. 7, Series of 2016:[2]
“The PhiLSAT presently operates not only as a measure of an applicant’s
aptitude for law school. The PhiLSAT, as a pass or fail exam, dictates upon law
schools who among the examinees are to be admitted to any law program. When
the PhiLSAT is used to exclude, qualify, and restrict admissions to law
schools, as its present design mandates, the PhiLSAT goes beyond mere
supervision and regulation, violates institutional academic freedom, becomes
unreasonable and therefore, unconstitutional. In strking down these
objectionable clauses in the PhiLSAT, the State’s inherent power to protect
public interest by improving legal education is neither emasculated nor
compromised. Rather, the institutional academic freedom of law schools to
determine for itself who to admit pursuant to their respective admissions
policies is merely protected. In turn, the recognition of academic discretion
comes with the inherent limitation that its exercise should not be whimsical,
arbitrary, or gravely abused.
In similar vein, certain LEB issuances which exceed the powers granted under
its charter should be nullified for being ultra vires.” (Underscoring and
emphasis supplied)
The body of the decision indicates that the PhiLSAT excludes, qualifies, and
restricts admission to law schools, which is violative of academic of freedom.
The ponencia, however, is silent as to whether the taking of the PhiLSAT
should be mandatory and therefore, integral to admission. If the taking of the
Philsat is integral to admission then this would clearly be violative of
institutional academic freedom.
A careful reading of the separate opinions of Senior Associate Justice Estela
Perlas-Bernabe, Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen, who is joined by
Chief Justice Lucas P. Bersamin, Associate Justices Benjamin S. Caguioa,
Alexander G. Gesmundo, and Andres B. Reyes, Jr., taken together with the
majority opinion, reflect the view that the PhiLSAT is an optional law
admission test. Thus, any government regulatory agency which prescribes
minimum standards for admission to law school cannot be arbitrary and
unreasonable in its issuances relating to admission since they are required to
show a compelling State interest to do so, which must be reasonable, and for a
public purpose. Any form of government regulation must therefore pass the
constitutional test of reasonableness, as measured against the four principles of
academic freedom, specifically, the freedom of law schools to determine who to
admit for the study of law.
To ensure that institutional academic freedom is preserved and protected, the
Honorable Supreme Court recognizes the right of an institution of higher
learning to have the exclusive prerogative to admit students and provide that
“atmosphere which is most conducive to speculation, experiment and creation.
It is an atmosphere in which there prevails the ‘four essential freedoms’ of a
university — to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what
may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.”[3]
Law schools play a major role in the sphere of legal education within the
structure of institutions of higher learning. In their exercise of academic
freedom, law schools must have the liberty to decide for themselves their “aims
and objectives and how best to attain them”. They must be “free from outside
coercion or interference save possibly when the overriding public welfare calls
for some restraint, and a wide sphere of autonomy certainly extending to the
choice of students.” Academic freedom, as held by this Honorable Court, “is not
to be construed in a niggardly manner or in a grudging fashion, for that would
be to frustrate its purpose, or nullify its intent.”[4]
The relevant portions of the following separate opinions in Pimentel v. Legal
Education Board are reproduced to show that the PhiLSAT is optional, because
to consider it mandatory would make law school
admissions exclusionary, qualifying and restrictive, and thus, contrary to the
academic freedom of law schools to determine who to admit for the study of law
in our respective institutions.
Senior Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe, in her separate concurring
opinion, succinctly discusses why the provisions of Legal Education Board
(LEB) Memorandum Order No. 7, Series of 2016 (LEBMO No. 7-2016) that
mandatorily require the passing of the Philippine Law School Admission Test
(PhiLSAT) as a pre-requisite for admission to any law school violate
institutional academic freedom and hence, unconstitutional:[5]
“In this case, while the policy of the State to ‘uplift the standards of legal
education’ may be characterized as a compelling State interest, the means of
achieving this goal, through the PhiLSAT, together with its mandatory and
exclusionary features as above-discussed, do not appear to be narrowly tailored
or the least restrictive means for achieving this interest. There is no concrete
showing why the implementation of a standardized but  optional State aptitude
exam, which schools may freely adopt in their discretion as a tool for their
own determination of who to admit (such as the National Medical Aptitude Test
for medical schools or the Law School Admission Test in the United States of
America), would be less of a “sifting” measure than a mandatory and
exclusively State-determined one (such as the PhiLSAT). This is especially so
since, as conceded by LEB Chairperson Emerson B. Aquende during the oral
arguments in this case, there is no statistical basis to show the propensity of the
PhiLSAT to improve the quality of legal education. Furthermore, no other study
or evaluation regarding the viability of the PhiLSAT was shown to this effect. It
is true that in a general sense, the PhiLSAT operates as a basic aptitude exam
which seeks to test skills that have rational connection to the field of law, i.e.,
communications and language proficiency, critical thinking, and verbal and
quantitative reasoning. However, because the test was solely crafted by the
LEB, it completely excludes the law schools’ input and participation, and worse,
even puts their very existence in jeopardy should there be non-subservience.
Verily, an absolutist approach in any facet of academic freedom would not only
result in an overly restrictive State regulation, it would also be practically
counterproductive because law schools, being at the forefront, are the
quintessential stakeholders to the mission of improving legal education. Again,
by constitutional fiat, the State’s role is limited to reasonable supervision, not
control. For these reasons, the provisions of LEBMO No. 7-2016 on the
PhiLSAT clearly transgress institutional academic freedom.” (Underscoring and
emphasis supplied)
In his dissenting and concurring opinion, Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen is clear
and categorical that all aspects of the Philippine Law School Admission Test,
and for that matter, any national admission test – even if not made mandatory,
is unconstitutional for being an infringement of academic freedom. Justice
Leonen’s opinion, joined by no less than Chief Justice Lucas P. Bersamin,
further makes a distinction between the Philippine Law School Admission Test
and the National Medical Admission Test:[6]
“The Philippine Law School Admission Test is an  unwarranted intrusion into
this essential freedom. The government’s imposition of a passing score as a bar
to admission violates the educational institutions’ academic freedom to
determine who to admit to study. The existence of the Legal Education Board,
on the other hand, interferes with the right of academic institutions with respect
to how to teach and who to teach.” (Underscoring and emphasis supplied)
...

“As found by the majority, the Philippine Law School Admission Test, unlike
the National Medical Admission Test, violates institutional academic freedom
insofar as it prescribes a passing score that must be followed by law
schools. Failure to reach the passing score will disqualify the examinee from
admission to any Philippine law school. This is because a Certificate of
Eligibility is necessary for enrollment as a first year law student. Respondent
Legal Education, which administers the test, only allows law schools to impose
additional requirements for admission, but passing the test is still mandatory.
The failure of law schools to abide by these requirements exposes them to
administrative sanctions.
In contrast, failure to achieve a certain score in the National Medical Admission
Test no longer disqualifies an examinee from applying to all medical schools.
For one, test scores are reported with a corresponding percentile rank that
ranges from 1 to 99+. It “indicates the percentage of [National Medical
Admission Test] examinees who have [test] scores the same as or lower than the
examinee. This percentile rank is evaluated by the medical schools against the
cutoff grade that they themselves determine. Hence, the percentile rank cutoff is
only a “minimum score that qualfies an examinee as a bonafide applicant for
admission into his/her preferred medical school. The test score only determines
the available medical schools where a person may apply; the higher the score,
the more options the applicant has.

Thus, I agree with the majority’s characterization that the Philippine Law
School Admission Test employs a “totalitarian scheme” that leaves the actions
of law schools entirely dependent on the test results. It usurps the right of law
schools to determine the admision requiremens for its would-be students –
ulitmately infringing on the institutional academic freedom they possess, as
guaranteed by the Constitution.”
Upon closer inspection, Justice Leonen observes that “the Philippine Law
School Admission Test does not merely recommend, but dictates on law
schools who are qualified to be admitted. By prescribing a passing score and
predetermining who may enroll in law schools, the State forces its judgment on
the institutions, when it has no business doing so. Any fovernmental attempt to
dictate upon schools the composion of their studentry undermines their
institutional academic freedom.”[7]
In his separate concurring opinion, Justice Alfredo Benjamin S. Caguioa states
that the PhiLSAT is violative of academic freedom, and that the State’s power
over law schools is limited to supervision and regulation, not control:[8]
“With respect to the academic freedom aspect of who may be admitted to the
schools, I reiterate my position that the ponencia is correct in holding that
the PhiLSAT is violative of academic freedom. Mandating legal education
institutions to reject examinees who failed to obtain the prescribed passing score
amounts to a complete transfer of control over student admissions from the law
schools to the LEB. To emphasize, the permissible power of the State over
institutions of higher learning is limited to supervision and regulation, not
control.” (Underscoring and emphasis supplied)
In finding that the PhiLSAT should be set aside, Justice Alexander G.
Gesmundo further explains his view in his separate concurring and dissenting
opinion:[9]
“I concur with the ponencia that the LEB Memorandum Orders and
Circular, requiring the PhiLSAT as mandatory and exclusionary, are
unconstitutional.
Institutions of higher learning have academic freedom, under the Constitution,
and this includes the freedom to determine who may be admitted to study. Such
freedom may only be limited by the State based on the test of reasonability. In
this case, however, the assailed Memorandum Orders fail to provide a
reasonable justification for restraining the admission of students to law schools
based on the following reasons:

First, by making the PhiLSAT mandatory and exclusionary, the LEB

significantly restricts the freedom of law schools to determine who shall be
admitted as law students. Only those who pass the said examination shall be
considred for admission to these institutions of higher learning. Consequently,
the LEB, through the PhiLSAT, first chooses the potential law students, and
only afterwards, shall the law schools be allowed to choose their students from
the limited pool of student-passers. The said institutes of higher learning are
barred from considering those students who failed the examinations, regardless
of their previous academic grades and achievements.
Second, the LEB does not give any justification for the required passing score of
55% and the format of the examinations. The studies cited by the LEB were
conducted by different organizations, for different professions, and for foreign
jurisdictions. Indeed, no concrete study conducted in the Philippines for the
legal profession was provided to substantiate the passing score and the test
format. It is not even clear whether the consensus of the law schools in the
country was secured before the LEB imposed the PhiLSAT. Without any
concrete basis for the conduct of the examination, it would be unreasonable to
impose the same mandatorily and without exemption to the institutes of higher
learning.
Third, law schools are given no option other than to follow the LEB
Memorandum Orders and Circular. Failure to comply with these shall result
in administrative sanctions, ranging from closure of the law school, phase-out
of the law program, provision cancellation of its recognition and/or liailityto pay
a fine of P10,000.00 for each infraction. Even without a valid reason for the
impostion of the PhiLSAT requirement, the LEB completely restricts the law
schools from accepting students who did not pass the said examination. The
schools’ exercise of academic freedom to choose their students is restricted by
the threat of administrative and pecuniary sanctions.
Assuming arguendo that the LEB Memorandum Orders and Circular were
issued under the exercise of police power of the State to regulate the rights of
certain institutions, it does not justify the unreasonable restriction on the
academic freedom of institutes of higher learning. Notwithstanding its extensive
sweep, police power is not without its own limitations. For all its awesome
consequences, it may not be exercised arbitrarily or unreasonably. Otherwise,
and in that event, it defeats the purpose for which it is exercised, that is to
advance the public good. Thus, when the power is used to further private
interests at the expense of the citizenry, there is a clear misuse of the power.
Here, the LEB failed to establish the reasonable means to limit the academic
freedom of the institutes of higher learning. Again, there is no valid explanation
provided on the mandatory and exclusionary requirement of the PhiLSAT, its
passing grade, and format of examinations. Manifestly, to impose a penalty on
law schools based on an unreasonable policy that restricts academic freedom
would be an invalid exercise of police power.” (Undescoring and emphasis
supplied)
In his separate concurring opinion, Justice Andres B. Reyes, Jr. [10] agreed
with the ponencia in striking as unconstitutional LEBMO No. 7, and all its
adjunct orders, for being violative of the institutions’ and students’ academic
freedom, emphasizing that
“. . . it becomes all too apparent that LEBMO No. 7, insofar as it imposes the
PhiLSAT, is a constricting regulation that binds the hands of the schools from
choosing who to admit in their law program. The LEB thrusts upon the law
schools a pre-selected roster of applicants, and effectively deprives them of the
right to select their own students on the basis of factors and criteria of their own
choosing. Consequently, the law schools are left with no choice but to elect
from this limited pool. Worse, they are forbidden from admitting those who
failed to comply with the LEB’s requirements, under pain of administrative
sanctions.
Undoubtedly, the imposition of the PhiLSAT is
an oppressive and arbitrary measure. The LEB is bereft of power to substitute
its own judgment for that of the universities’. Rather, the universities should be
free to consider other criteria (aside from the PhiLSAT) in determining their
prospective students’ aptitude and ability to survive in law school. In fact,
during the Oral Arguments held on March 5, 2019, amicus curiae Dean Sedfrey
Candelaria revealed that passing the law entrance exam is not a guarantee that
the student will survive through law school . . .
Indeed, the level of supervision and regulation granted unto the State must
be reasonable. This “reasonableness” in no way grants a warrant for the State to
exercise oppressive control over the schools.” (Underscoring and emphasis
supplied)
At present, the case is still pending final resolution of the motions for
reconsideration that have been filed by the petitioners who are law professors,
and the respondent Legal Education Board.