When I made a Caricature of my Filipino Self Being the editorial cartoonist of our school paper brought prestige and honor to myself. However, the attention and admiration was more on the staff members who wrote English articles. I tried to send an English poem but to my disappointment, the editorial staff did not publish my submission because I plagiarized it from one of my Mothers Teachers Journal magazine. That was my first and last attempt to try to be one of the conos in our school. Shortly after, to my horror, our school paper adviser made me as an English language assistant sports editor. Good thing my older sister, Mana Glenda, who convinced me in joining the school paper organization, helped me in writing my first article as a sports assistant editor. Although my article passed the proofreading and editing process I was completely convinced our editor had a nightmare proofreading it. I sensed her nightmare when she appointed me as a Filipino language assistant editor afterwards. It embarrassed me but was secretly relieved because I was finally assigned to my comfort zone. To compensate for my English grammar inadequacy I took my Filipino articles seriously. I wrote topics about national issues and I did it well in trying to impress my colleagues and to appease my allegedly down-trodden pride. I believed I succeeded on that aspect because the editorial staff included me in their delegation to compete in the Division School Press Conference in Borongan, E Samar. I competed against other students sports writers and editorial cartoonists. The Editorial cartooning competition was divided into two: English and Filipino. I participated in both categories. Although, I did not get any award from the sports writing contest I got a citation for getting the third place in the Filipino editorial cartooning category. That led me to attend the National Secondary School Press Conference held in Pasig, Metro Manila, in 1993. Getting the chance to visit Manila and experience the glitters of the city was more overwhelming in my mind than winning the cartooning competition. I did not win but I won lots of experiences that would later help me in my future endeavors. The citation I got for being a Filipino language editorial cartoonist in the local level made me realize I do not need to have proficient knowledge in the English language to succeed. I graduated high school with that thought in my mind not knowing the real challenge in the real world outside the comfort of my beloved alma mater.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 07:58:12 +0000
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