Adventures in Journalism 2: They come to bury her, not to praise her

In the flurry of photo opportunities and exclusive coverages of the Cory wake and funeral, the following are just three of the bloopers reporting the death of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo instead of former Pres. Corazon Aquino:

Philippine Star news item featured in Yahoo.com

ABS-CBN live coverage

Manila Bulletin August 6, 2009 issue

(Photos courtesy of Gibbs Cadiz and Frank Cimatu)

Reminiscing about the NSPC - Reprint

This article was written by Kristine Panogot, an NSPC national winner in Feature writing representing South Cotabato then in Region XI. Reminiscing about the NSPC

Written by Tinette Panogot

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

Just how memorable a part of student life in the Philippines is the NSPC? Google the NSPC, or its former incarnation, the NSSPC, and blogs surface in which NSPC alumni talk about the NSPCs they've been to and aspiring delegates talk about the NSPC they are going to. Blogger Lourgen Therese Paderanga calls the 2006 Kalibo, Aklan NSPC her "most wonderful experience as a student" because her delegation later went sightseeing in Boracay. She divulges in her blog that although she dreamed about seeing other places, she thought that she had no chance of doing so because she lives in the southern part of the country. Then, "unexpectedly, a one of a kind opportunity comes my way -- to be able to have a trip to one of the places where I longed to visit -- the island paradise of Boracay," she gushes. Nor is she the only one. "(A)ng unang pagkakataon na nakasakay ako ng eroplano, at makatakas sa Luzon, ay nang palarin akong manalo sa RSPC noong nasa 4th year high school ako at ipadala ako sa National Schools Press Conference na ginanap noong Disyembre 1997 sa Tangub City. (The first time that I rode on an airplane, and was able to escape Luzon, was when I was lucky enough to win the RSPC (Regional Schools Press Conference) when I was in 4th year high school and I was sent to the National Schools Press Conference held in December 1997 at Tangub City)," reminisces Palanca awardee for poetry Edgar Calabia Samar in his LiveJournal blog. He remembers that the airplane landed at Dipolog and that they were able to stop at Dapitan to see the replica of Jose Rizal's house. To cap the experience, he then won second place in Editorial Writing. The experience is not just tours and sightseeing, of course. The main thing that drives the NSPC is, and always has been, journalistic training and competition. The delegates have undergone rigorous eliminations at the Division and Regional levels in order to reach the Nationals. Formerly, ten winners for the two language mediums for each Division would battle it out in each category in the Regionals. Five Regional winners per medium per category would advance to the Nationals, where again, ten winners per medium per category would be chosen: the best of the best young writers in the Philippines. At present, the standards are stricter: only three Regional winners go on to the NSPC, and only seven National winners are finally chosen. As blogger Ellaination recalls of her own NSPC experience: "(H)aller, reality check, imposible pa sa imposible na manalo ako sa Nationals. Jusmiyo, ilang manunulat ang kakatunggaliin ko mula sa iba't-ibang lupalop ng Pilipinas, ano naman ang panlaban ko sa kanila??? (Hello, reality check, it was greatly impossible that I would win in the Nationals. My God, how many writers would I be up against from the rest of the country? How could I win against them?)" But win she did. "Sa bawat paglapat ng ballpen ko sa papel noon habang sumusulat ako ng articles kahit ako'y inaantok na... sa bawat madugong draft na ibinabalik mo... sa mga pagpupuyat na dinanas ko para lang makapag-press work... (For each touch of my ballpen to paper while I was writing articles even when I was already sleepy... For each bloody draft that you returned... For the sleepless nights that I experienced just to do press work...)," she goes on to thank her school paper adviser, who has since passed away, maintaining that even now that she is already working, she still continues to write. Another blogger, Ako Si Pedro, looks back at his own bittersweet aspirations to the NSPC and pokes fun at himself: "...tiwala ako sa sarili ko. Alam ko na kaya kong umabot sa National Schools Press Conference. Tiniyak ko ‘yon sa nanay ko, sa mga kaibigan ko, sa punong guro namin, sa titser na gabay ko, sa mga kasamahan ko, sa takatak boy sa kanto na nagbebenta ng yosi, kending stork at vicks, kay mang carding na magtataho pati na sa alaga n'yang pusa na si mingming, sa mga harurot boys na traysikol drayber, at higit sa lahat, tiniyak ko ‘yon sa sarili ko. I'll bring home the bacon! Yeah baby! Yeah!---Ngunit nabigo ako, at kung ano man ang kadahilanan ay hindi ko na ikwekwento. Ayokong sabihin pa na isinisisi ko ang kabiguan ko sa ibang tao. (I had such confidence in myself. I knew that I could reach the National Schools Press Conference. I assured my mother of it, my friends, our principal, my teacher-adviser, my companions, the 'takatak' boy at the corner who sells cigarettes, Storck and Vicks candies, Mang Carding who sells taho and even his pet cat Mingming, the 'harurot (speeding) boys' tricycle drivers, and most of all, I assured myself. I'll bring home the bacon! Yeah baby! Yeah! --but I was disappointed, and whatever the reason was, I will not go into it in detail. I will not have it said that I blame my failure on other people.)" Win or lose, however, Ako Si Pedro credits his experience with giving him confidence and some sense of direction. He writes: "Marami akong ginulantang nuong mga panahon na ‘yon. Ultimo mga kasama kong kalahok at dalawang titser na walang silbing nagsilbi bilang coach sa'min sa kompetisyon ay hindi makapaniwala na nanalo ako. Hindi ko sila masisisi. Isa kasing pilyong palikerong gago ang naging imahe ko sa eskwelahan. Na-stereotype na ako, nailagay na ako sa isang kahon at nalagyan ng marka, marka na palatandaan na ako'y isang gago. Animo'y alam na nila kung ano lang ang kaya ko. Hanggang dun na lang ako. ‘Yun ang akala nila! (I surprised a lot of people during those times. Even my fellow delegates and two teachers who served as our coaches in the competition could not believe that I won. I could not blame them. My image in school was that of a naughty playboy jerk. I was stereotyped, put in a box and marked, a mark that signified I was a ne'er do well. As if they were sure they knew my limitations. That I could only do so much. That was what they thought!)" His Press Conference days awakened a love affair with writing that lasted through his college days and finally inspired him to start blogging. Inspiring and stimulating as it has been to those for whom it was a rite of passage, the NSPC has not been spared the impact of other events within the country. In view of its mandate of developing journalistic competencies among the youth, nothing could be more fitting. Media must, after all, have its finger on the pulse of current events. For some, however, supervening incidents that affect the NSPC could be irritating. In his blog KnowReadKnoWrite, Gilbert Yap Tan thinks back on his stint as evaluator for three NSPCs, particularly recalling "what happened to the scheduled NSPC to be hosted by SoCot in 1993. Then DECS Secretary Armand Fabella decided to change the venue to Baguio City when a bombing incident occurred in nearby Sultan Kudarat. This was made a week before the scheduled event in spite of the fact that everyone and everything in SoCot were prepared for the hosting." That year, the South Cotabato delegation boycotted the event in disgust. The next year Fabella was replaced by Ricardo Gloria, and the NSPC finally arrived in Koronadal. Even without disasters and catastrophes taking place, for other delegates it is a struggle to be able to go to the NSPC even if they have already qualified during the Regionals. Budget is a big consideration, as a school paper adviser relates in his blog. He and his students had to solicit funds from the community to be able to attend the NSPC. "I experienced it thrice in a row looking at my student's determination to compete in the national but it seems that budget would somehow obstruct their vision. But we were able to hurdle the difficulties when we banked on the generosity of friends, relatives, politicians, and the school. It is at this point that since the school budget was poured off in the production of the paper, and some were appropriated to the fare and registration during the Division and Regional Schools Press Conferences, the national level seemed to have ended up a dream hanging out there. The last resort was to solicit benevolent assistance from known resources," he recollects. Good or bad experiences notwithstanding, many agree that their NSPC experiences were memorable. Bicolano blogger Mitsuru, in particular, could not forget his own NSPC experience-- during the EDSA Revolution. "I was neither at home in Tiwi, Albay nor protesting in EDSA at that time," he recounts. "I was in the Visayas, Barotac Nuevo in Iloilo to be exact during the National Secondary Schools Press Conference (NSSPC) held in that rustic but charming town and if I remembered it correctly, some 30-plus kilometers away from the City of Iloilo. I was in third year high school in 1986 when I was chosen as one of the representatives of the Bicol Region (by virtue of me landing in 5th place in the News Writing Category in the Regional Secondary Schools Press Conference (RSSPC) held at the Camarines Sur National High School in Naga City of the same year) to the NSSPC where lady luck smiled on me in Barotac Nuevo for I placed 9th (only the top 10 were announced and awarded certificates onstage) out of 150- plus contestants nationwide and was the highest placed Bicolano in the News Writing Category." While world-changing events took place far away in the national capital, the delegates went about their lectures and competitions, and followed the news avidly. Mitsuru remembers the late Joe Quirino wearing a yellow ribbon, and how "(w)hen the church bells finally toll(ed) on the night the Marcoses left Malacanang, the entire auditorium went wild as the delegates from Regions II to XII and NCR whooped it up while the delegates from the Ilocos just kept quiet." Even an ordinary NSPC could be a major disaster or a major adventure, depending how you looked at it. To blogger Lily, who went to the 1994 Koronadal NSPC, it was both. She writes in her blog "Catching the Duma Virus": "Most of the teachers and parents were hesitant about sending us to Mindanao for the conference because they were terrified that this new terrorist group--- which the radio, TV, and newspapers were obsessing about--- might blow us up. I didn't like this Abu Sayyaf that people were talking about because they were ruining my opportunity to travel and bring glory to my family, my school, my city, my region, and most especially to my Darwinian instincts." After three days bus travel (which she remembers as miserable), they finally reached Koronadal. For her event, Feature Writing, the topic given was: "I would travel to the ends of the Philippines for an experience like the NSSPC." All she could think to write about was: "What? No Abu Sayyaf?" Lily ends her blog post: "(T)his essay should have been what I wrote in Koronadal. But it took me fourteen years and almost a week to write this." That shows just how long the NSPC experience can remain fresh in a delegate's consciousness.

A General in Youngblood

I'm particularly proud to feature in this blog an essay written by Zea Raiza Pidut whom I've known since her high school days as a campus journalist. She is a graduate of NDDU and now teaches at NDMU.

Youngblood
Vocation, vacation
By Zea Raiza S. Pidut
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:20:00 08/26/2008

I belong to a family of educators, but I never thought of becoming a teacher. Both my parents teach in public schools. I have seen how committed they are to their work, but they are never properly compensated. For that reason, our resources are limited despite my parents’ great potentials. Still I have nothing to complain about for I was given everything I needed. They made sure of that.

I have relatives on both sides of the family who also took up teaching as their profession. Even my older sister planned to teach in a tertiary institution, but she is now a CPA working abroad.

I never had the same desire. I had other dreams. I knew that there is a bigger world out there: many places to go to, positions to climb and, of course, a lot of money to make. I was trained well from elementary to college, both in academics and extra-curricular activities. I took up leadership roles, initiated and facilitated activities, and participated in competitions.

The change of heart happened a year ago, in the final year of my college education. And, with the change of heart came the change of plans.

I was one of four youth representatives sent by our school, a Marist institution, to the Asian Marist Youth Meeting in Tagaytay City in September 2007. The meeting’s aim was to understand the problems faced by the youth in Asia as well as to strengthen the Marist spirituality of the youth.

There, I got to know different personalities: Marist Brothers, lay people and young men and women from the different Marist schools in our country and other parts of Asia. I would not try to put into words the entire experience. It’s enough to say that it became the turning point of my life. It was then that I decided to serve the Marist community.

As an accountancy graduate, I was expected to have every graduate’s dream: to become a CPA. But fulfilling that dream would have hindered my commitment to serve the Marist community. Becoming a CPA would have meant going to Manila for review classes (my sister had actually enrolled me before she went abroad). And after passing the licensure examinations, it would not have been very easy to come back home.

The path would have been laid out for me: I would work in a prestigious auditing firm in Makati City. With my academic honors (I graduated magna cum laude), leadership awards and other citations, I would have been entitled to a generous signing bonus. Working in an auditing firm would increase my value and prepare me for greater things. After two or three years of working in the firm, I would be qualified to work abroad and receive a monthly pay of P200,000 or more. And if I digressed from this path, I would be considered a fool.

I believed it would be much better to be considered a fool now than later. And so I made my choice. I am here in Koronadal City, teaching at Notre Dame of Marbel University.

Many people have asked me why I chose this institution when I could have served my alma mater, Notre Dame of Dadiangas University. I would have, if I had been given the same chance I was given here. But then I would have been roasted during the interview, because they probably would never have accepted the reasons for my decision. Why would an accountancy graduate choose to teach non-accounting subjects? Why couldn’t she wait, when there was no need to hurry?

I am tired of explaining over and over again. It does not matter much to me what subjects I teach for as long as I am teaching. I know that with my decision, I have failed many people: my teachers who protected me and understood the demands of campus leadership; my classmates who put up with me and tried hard to understand my inconsistencies; my parents and siblings who had big dreams for me. I was supposed to be an inspiration to other students, someone who could juggle both academic and extra-curricular commitments. But I did not finish splendidly in their eyes. To them, I have not been a good influence.

I may be considered selfish for doing only what I wanted. I will not argue against that. But hopefully, in the long run everyone will be proud of me once again.

I am happy. I find greater meaning in everything that I do. Every class session is a learning experience.

Life in Notre Dame of Marbel University is not the same as the one I was used to. I spent all my school life managing both academics and a host of extracurricular commitments: leading organizations, conducting activities, and participating in seminars and joining competitions. Here, everything is simple. I prepare my lessons, teach my students, and facilitate activities and discussions. I apply and share the learnings I got from my academic and extracurricular activities when I was still studying. I motivate and inspire my students to do meaningful things and participate in school activities. I appreciate the simplicity of everything.

In a way, I am taking a vacation—a meaningful one. I am getting to know myself deeper.

I know that my responsibilities will be greater and more demanding in the future. But I am prepared. The pay is not an issue; I can manage with a teacher’s salary. Yes, I will not get rich in a worldly way, but I can be rich in character and wisdom.

In the final analysis, what matter most are the happiness that I feel and the happiness that I share with others.

Zea Raiza S. Pidut, 21, is a member of the faculty of the College of Business Administration of Notre Dame of Marbel University in Koronadal City.

Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NSPC 2008 at Koronadal City

The National Schools Press Conference (NSPC) is THE competition for campus journalists coming from the 17 regions of the country. This national competition is held in two mediums (English & Filipino), two levels (Elementary and Secondary) and two categories (Individual and Group). Group contests involve school papers while the individual category is competed in by news, editorial, feature, and sports writers, copyreaders/headline writers, editorial cartoonists and photojournalists.

The NSPC was held recently on February 18-22 at Koronadal City with South Cotabato as the host division. This is the second time the NSPC was hosted by SoCot; the first being in 1994. It was my privilege to serve as lecturer and evaluator for the secondary level of the Copyreading & Headline Writing competition.

This is my third time to be a national evaluator for NSPC. The first was during the NSPC held in General Santos City in 2002 and the second in NSPC in Caraga Region in 2005.

I was well aware of what happened to the scheduled NSPC to be hosted by SoCot in 1993. Then DECS Secretary Armand Fabella decided to change the venue to Baguio City when a bombing incident occurred in nearby Sultan Kudarat. This was made a week before the scheduled event in spite of the fact that everyone and everything in SoCot were prepared for the hosting. So when the Valentine's Day bombings happened prior to the NSPC in Caraga Region, I volunteered to serve as an alternate evaluator in case some judge from Metro Manila canceled. Sure enough, somebody backed out and I was immediately called in as replacement.

A Metro Manila-based school paper adviser and officer of the national school paper advisers' association, upon learning that I would be serving as an alternate evaluator, gave me a tongue-lashing in front of a lot of people at the Surigao Provincial Capitol and accused me of bias- blah-blah-blah (surprisingly, when Gensan hosted the NSPC in 2002, she had no complaints at all about my being a judge and to think I was based in Gensan). As practised, NSPC entries are rated using blind evaluation, meaning, the judges don't know who wrote the entries they're rating since these are identified only through control numbers assigned after the competition. So what bias-blah-blah-blah was this haughty school paper adviser talking about? Anyway, I'm sure those who witnessed the incident only had one conclusion: the adviser must have failed her GMRC (Good Manners and Right Conduct) class in elementary. I had the go-signal to serve as an alternate judge from the DepEd Caraga Regional Director and DepEd Head Office officials-in-charge and that's all that mattered to me.

On the Road (again) . . .

My speaking engagements have started this month. As part of the University's extension services, I get invited to be a resource person in campus journalism seminar-workshops for student writers and school paper advisers in Regions 11 and 12.

I may be putting posting in this blog in the back burner for a while.

I hope you don't miss me that much. :)

Julia Campbell: A Kindred Spirit Moves On

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on:
nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it

-- Omar Khayyam

I do not know Julia Campbell personally. I'd known a few Peace Corps Volunteers in the years immediately preceding 1972 before Martial Law was declared in the Philippines. One of them is Alvin Hower who taught at Notre Dame of Dadiangas College and eventually married a local girl I also know, Prima Guipo. I am familiar with the volunteer work being accomplished by the Peace Corps in third world countries such as the Philippines. But, sadly, I hardly knew Julia Campbell before she made the headlines.

But I feel a certain kindredship with her because she taught kids how to read, write and speak in English and teens the rudiments of campus journalism. She was a freelance writer/journalist for the New York Times and People and Star Magazines. She maintained a blog. She was a kindred spirit indeed.

Irony ruled over her life in the Philippines. At 38, after surviving the terrorist attacks in New York, she decided to "drop from the rat race" and joined the Peace Corps. Her last blogpost was titled, Buhay pa tayo (We are still alive) because she noticed that whenever she asked Filipinos in Sorsogon and Legaspi where she was assigned how they were, the usual answer would be: Eto, buhay pa. In it, she wondered if during the onslaught of Typhoon Reming in Legaspi last year, she would be drowned by the rising flood waters in her small apartment away from her family and friends.

She was reported missing April 8, Easter Sunday which traditionally marked the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Ten days later, her body was found in a shallow grave in Banaue, known for its rice terraces. This Peace Corps volunteer who loved communing with nature met a violent death.

Her pictures flashed on TV screens worldwide showed a woman with a warm smile which must have won over a lot of Filipinos who love to smile at the slightest provocation. Her volunteer work at Donsol, Sorsogon and at Legaspi had certainly touched a lot of lives there. After her unwarranted death, her caring and endearing ways and generosity with her time and talents while assigned to this country must have surely touched a chord in the hearts of people like me who came to know her, albeit belatedly. To me, Julia embodied the essence of the Peace Corps - volunteers who genuinely care about the people they work and live with, see the need and rally every resource they can find to meet it, and put a lot of passion in everything they do.

Her family and friends may find consolation in the fact that Filipinos are now bombarding the heavens with prayers and saying decades of the Holy Rosary for the repose of soul of Julia.

Thank you for caring, Julia. Vaya con Dios (Go with God), my kindred spirit.