The Legal Education Board (LEB) has directed Mindanao State University (MSU) to shut down its law programs across all campuses starting from the 2025-2026 academic year. This decision follows LEB's approval of a resolution revoking MSU’s accreditation. The move comes as a result of MSU’s refusal to acknowledge LEB’s supervisory authority and its assertion that it is not obligated to follow the board’s orders, policies, and guidelines concerning legal education. “The MSU is no longer authorized to offer the basic law program in the country”, the LEB said.
The board has made permanent its cease and desist order against MSU’s extension law programs located in Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, and Maguindanao. It voiced concerns about MSU’s "dismal" performance in Bar examinations, highlighting that the school's passing rate has consistently fallen below the national average since 2013.
“The LEB cannot permit aspiring lawyers to continue enrolling at MSU, and invest their time, effort and resources in an education whose fitness to operate has not been assessed by the LEB”, it said. The board said that while the Bar exam is not the only measure of a law school’s fitness to operate, it is the only “tangible and independent” evidence it could rely on since the university has refused to submit to its supervision.
In response to the LEB’s resolution, MSU stated that it would maintain operations according to its charter established by Congress in 1955. The university argued that the LEB does not have the authority to amend the MSU Charter by ordering the closure of its law programs. MSU also expressed surprise at the LEB's assessment of its educational quality, which it feels is based solely on Bar exam results.
It said that MSU performs better than several, if not numerous, legal education institutions under LEB supervision. The university said the decision of the LEB would deprive Muslim youth of access to law education. “MSU will not allow this to happen as it will wreak havoc in Muslim Mindanao and destroy the gains of MSU’s decades of peace-building in the discharge of its trilogy of functions of instruction, research and extension”, it said.
