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Sunday, April 04, 2004
Journalist gets best news ever aboard jeepney
By ALEDEL GONZALEZ-CUIZON
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
OF ALL places to receive good news, Haide Acuña got the text message while riding a jeepney home from the Redemptorist Church last Friday.
“Congratulations, attorney,” a friend’s message said.
She couldn’t contain her elation after confirming that she was among the 1,108 examinees who passed the bar, so she just told the person beside her that she was already a lawyer.
Word spread inside the jeepney until all the passengers knew.
She went to church that day to pray for strength “to accept whatever outcome.”
Acuña said she was just relieved the long wait for the exam results was over. Reviewing for the bar was tedious, but waiting for the results was agonizing.
“There is so much to lose. That’s why the heartache of those who didn’t pass is understandable,” she said. Two of her close friends didn’t make it.
Acuña, a former Sun.Star correspondent and newscaster for TV Patrol Cebu, credited her journalism skills as one factor for passing.
She said she used the “inverted pyramid” style of writing: the main thought first, before the details.
“I didn’t use any fancy legalese. It was just like writing for the paper,” she said.
Her ability to convey ideas in concise writing really helped, she added.
Acuña plans to specialize in labor cases but as of now, she wants to “do the rounds.”
“My preference might change,” she added.
Acuña finished mass communications at St. Theresa’s College in 1998 and graduated law at the University of San Carlos last year.
As a Sun.Star correspondent in 2000, Acuña once wrote about two Cebuanas who made it to the top 10 of the 1999 bar examinations. She also covered the Capitol and the courts as a television reporter.
Acuña said divine intervention and luck played big roles in her success.
She pointed out that the fate of even the best law students will still lay in the hands of the examiner.
Factors such as handwriting and even the mood of the examiner as he or she reads your answers still counted, she said.
Acuña added that while she was reviewing, she prayed harder than ever.
“I couldn’t sleep so I just prayed. It may sound corny but you need to find a strong anchor in an ordeal like that,” she said.
On days between exams, she and some friends held “DVD marathons” as their way of coping with stress.
Acuña, the eldest of four siblings, is the first lawyer in the family.
“I am just relieved. It won’t make me two inches taller and neither will it bring me to a higher level of existence. I’m just the same person but with bigger responsibilities,” she pointed out.
And good news to her younger brothers: she promised she will keep up her chore of cleaning the toilet every week.
(April 4, 2004 issue)
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