Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Bautista: Partings are so difficult By Sam Bautista Tea Leaf Reader
IT IS never easy to say goodbye, especially so when you know just when the parting is to happen.
But hard as it might be, I am forced to say so again. This time to our visitors from Batac, Ilocos Norte who were with us for such a short time. By us I mean the entire Sun.Star Baguio family.
On April 30, five students from the Mariano Marcos State University will be the last day of their internship in Sun.Star Baguio. They were with us for a month and in that short time they have shown how important this job of ours is.
They (in alphabetical order, Kayceline Buted, Godfrey Justo, April Rafales, Renz Sagun and Apple Ann Ulep) came to Sun.Star Baguio last April 1 without even an inkling of will happen to them in their stay in this little office. Little did they know that they would experience things very few, even among those who have been in this profession for years, would have gone through.
Take Godfrey for example. It he wasn't forced to go to Bontoc, Mountain Province for the Lang-ay festival, he would never have earned the moniker "Lang-ay Papa". The two days he spent in Bontoc also showed him another culture very different from what he is used to. He would not have seen how it is to leave in the boondocks of the Cordillera and experience the hospitality of the highlands.
The same could be said of Apple, the second April birthday celebrant (wala pa rin yong blowout, hehehe), she had the rare chance of meeting President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the Local Peace and Security Assembly in Bangued, Abra. Okay, it is true Bangued is not that far different from their home in Ilocos Norte, but the experience of covering the President in one of her provincial sorties will not happen again in a long, long time (assuming she pursues her calling as a journalist).
And Renz had the opportunity to also see Bontoc for himself during the tour of the UNFPA country representative to Mountain Province. Well, he did not meet any pretty, young and available ladies when he visited the capital town (not like Godfrey), but he did experience Halsema Highway and saw for himself how heart pounding the trip could be.
Which leaves us with Kayceline (or KC) and April (the first April birthday girl -- as if that weren't obvious). In the short time they spent in Baguio (they were the only two who never left the city's boundaries, except for a quick trip to La Trinidad) they learned how difficult it is to look for the stories, which could make the headline (but write two or three, they did).
Anyway, their immediate fate lies in my hands now (I have the distinct pleasure (?) of being their evaluator for their OJT here). What they showed in the 30 days they spent with Sun.Star Baguio only goes to prove, talent can't be confined by political boundaries or institutes of learning. If they continue with their lives with what they showed this month, then they would probably make better journalists in the future.
To paraphrase what my friend is fond of saying: they are "improvements of the species."
Well, I'll miss the chirping way they talk in Iloko.
