Atty. Dante Arcos

by Edgar A. Basares Jr.

Aemilianum College of Law newest addition to the legal profession in Sorsogon is ATTY. DANTE L. ARCOS. ATTY. ARCOS made it in last year’s bar examination (released last Sunday March 29) – touted as one of the hardest with but a total passing percentile of only 22.91% of the 5,626 bar examinees. The passing rate would have been an all time low of 5%, had not the Supreme Court adjusted the passing rate from 75% to 70%.

Of course, the community of law students of Aemilianum is happy for Atty. ARCOS. As of this writing, the community is planning for a motorcade around the city. College Dean Atty. Kager Gerona was ecstatic and proud that he intends to bring out the test booklets of Atty. Arcos in his subject to show to the lower years how good he is. Last Sunday, after a thanksgiving mass at Aemilianum Chapel, Atty. Arcos dropped by and showed himself to all law students then taking their final examinations and was greeted with cheers by the community. Immediately he was besieged with the million dollar questions: Are you going to teach? Are you going to immediately go into private practice?

Atty. Dante Arcos is destined to become a lawyer. After finishing his Accountancy course from the Philippine School of Business Administration he worked with the Sandiganbayan as court interpreter at the same time studying law in Manila. Transferring back to the province, he worked as Legal Researcher at RTC Branch 51 and continued his law course at the Aemilianum College of Law. His exposure to court litigations and procedures augmented his classroom instruction; molded his competency in the study of the law and equipped him with confidence to hurdle the bar exams.

Atty. Arcos is also a SANO and belonged to batch 86 of the Our Lady of Peñafrancia Seminary. Known to us simply as Cacoy and Tetet, we, his classmates, were not surprised, and even expected him to pass. He is the second lawyer in the class, next after Atty. Junel Relativo who is now based in Naga City. You see, even during our seminary years, he was already showing signs of becoming a lawyer as he was one of the very few who can transgress seminary rules and get away with it. He covered his tracks well that he was one of the very few who have perfected the art of escaping from the seminary for days without even being noticed. He was the ninja of the class –who operates so silently and subtlety that only he can catch a chicken in the middle of the night without eliciting any sound making the Fr. Rector wonder where the chickens have gone. Even in his academics, Cacoy is devoid of a bang and a fanfare. He would just sit there silently watching an algebraic problem or a latin maxim or a Spanish phrase and before we know it already have the solution or the translation in his mind.

Amidst the euphoric preparation of the community of law students to parade Atty. Dante Arcos around the city, we the Sorsogon based Maelstrom Class (OLPS Batch 86) are silently preparing our own gathering and salutation for Cacoy. We have deliberately cancelled our customary Black Saturday get together this year in anticipation for the bar result of Cacoy.

We were never wrong.