The much-dreaded and publicized sickness of “Asian Flu” caused Pat and all our four small children to get sick of high fever!
All throughout Saturday and Saturday night, I had to attend to them, giving them medicine and lots of water to drink.
I wasn’t able to sleep a wink the whole night, watching and attending to my five patients, whose sweat I had to wipe, whose heads I had to place cold towels on, and whose cries for WATER (TUBIG) kept me on my toes.
The following morning I told Pat that I wouldn’t go and take the Bar Exam because I couldn’t leave them alone and my head felt light and empty for lack of sleep!
She said: “Take us to my sister’s and leave us there. Go and take the Exam, then fetch us back home.”
Hiring a “carretela,” we went to An’s apartment, where I left Pat and our sick children, on Avenida Rizal, more than one hour’s ride from Pandacan.
I barely reached the Normal School in time to take the exams and was able to read only ten articles of the Criminal Law, our subject that morning. There were around 300 articles in all.
Being tired, sleepy, and exhausted, I just answered the questions fast and as briefly as I could, to be able to get my family back home.
I rode with Edon Buicon, our best bet to top the Bar Exams from Arellano Law College, and we compared our answers while in the Jeepney.
All of his answers were quite different from mine, because he quoted the decided cases in support of his decisions on the problem cases, while I just cited the principles of law for each case I would have decided “if I were the Judge.”
When the Bar results were known, I got 95% while he got 75% in Criminal Law. Had he gotten my grade, he could have topped the Bar Exam candidates that year (1949) because all his grades in the other subjects were around 95%! Praise the Lord!
The Asian Flu lasted for one week in my family before everybody got well. Fortunately, I did not get sick of Asian Flu that swept the whole country, with lots of casualties, especially in the provinces.
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