Talk about having a great sense of humor. After its graduate Noel Malimban topped the recently released 2006 bar exams, UC-BCF is now reportedly adopting the battle cry “Hindi Ka Nag-iisa, Janet Abuel”. Janet, of course, is the first bar topnotcher from UC-BCF and Noel is the second.

The battle cry is inspired but it only focuses on Janet and does not mention Noel, the man of the hour, so here’s my suggestion: “Hindi ka nag-iisa Abuel. Andito na si Noel.” In this case, the two have equal billing di ba?

Meanwhile, if you are interested in keeping tabs on the St. Louis University vs. UC/BCF school rivalry, the current score is UC/BCF: 2 and SLU: 0. So there’s no question as to who currently holds the bragging rights. To quote Meling (in the comments section here): “Top that, SLU?”

Anyways, here’s an interesting story by Vincent Cabreza and Leila Salaverria on Noel Malimban.

All that UC president Reynaldo Agranzamendez could recall of Malimban was that he was “an accountant and a very unassuming fellow.”

Malimban’s first-place finish was so unexpected that at a management meeting just before the exam results were released, Agranzamendez had told his staff to prepare for the worst.

But Saturnino Ebusca, the UC vice president for finance, realized that Malimban actually placed 14th in the licensing examination for accountants seven years ago.

UC, formerly known as the Baguio Colleges Foundation, earned its place among the country’s top law schools when another graduate, Janet Abuel, topped the 1998 bar exams.

Agranzamendez said the UC was described as a “small school” in 1998, and was often belittled for Abuel’s accomplishment, which was described as a stroke of luck (“tsamba”).

He said Malimban had just proved their critics wrong.

“The battle cry we coined today is ‘Hindi ka na nag-iisa, Janet Abuel [You are no longer alone, Janet Abuel],” said Ebusca.

Abuel, like Malimban, is an accountant. Agranzamendez said many of their law graduates have an accountancy background which may explain why UC’s graduates perform so well at the bar.

Read the rest of the story at my once favorite paper.

RELATED STORY: UC-BCF Grad Tops Bar Exam; The List: Part 6. INFO SOURCE: Inquirer.net.