Thursday, October 23, 2008 So: Young people writing in Bisaya By Michelle P. So Caught in the Net
TUESDAY morning, I looked at the 11 kids, who are barely out of their teens, making dukdok the computer keyboards and I saw a life of temporary and relative wealth coming their way soon.
They were asked to write an essay about how Sun.Star [Cebu] Superbalita has carried out its role as a catalyst for Bisaya literacy in the last 14 years. If I mistranslated editor Dodong Morallo’s Bisaya instruction somewhere, then the essay was about one or two of the 14 newspaper virtues of Superbalita.
Be it the first topic or the second, the 11 students from seven colleges and universities in Cebu wrote down their thoughts in fluid and simple Bisaya. Under time and character count pressure, each came up with 2,500-character pieces.
Until last month when my visits to the Superbalita newsroom became frequent (to see if indeed some porn was going on as alleged by some misinformed non-readers of Superbalita), my deep Bisaya was limited to words like subli and barug.
But now, I feel a certain affinity to the Ludabi and Bathalad folk like Ade Sitoy and Ernie Lariosa for knowing deep Bisaya like kaligdong, katakos and kinaham. I have to say, though, that Sitoy and Lariosa are not my katalirungan.
Today, on the occasion of the 14th anniversary of Sun.Star [Cebu] Superbalita, the 11 students will know whose work have made it to the top three. The essays were judged by Sun.Star Cebu editors Lorenzo Ninal and Januar Yap, who are the kinaham of college students and twentysomethings, and by Superbalita language consultant Lamberto Ceballos, who is as cute as Ninal and Yap but only slightly older.
The 11 students hold the recognition of being the first batch of participants in what will be a regular thinking and writing activity of Superbalita anniversaries. Superbalita editors hope to get young people to write in Bisaya.
(The search for bikini-clad Miss Superbalita has been shelved this year lest it rouse some members of the Cebu Provincial Women’s Commission to another bodily suspicion about Superbalita.)
Let me introduce the students: Michael Sta. Maria of Cebu Institute of Technology, Kevin Lagunda and Liezl Abendan of Cebu Normal University, Juril Patino and Charlie Canasa Unabia of the University of the Visayas, Manolito Baterna and Liezl Joy Abano of Mandaue City College, Carmel Louise Matus of St. Theresa’s College, Jun Nino Nalipay of the University of San Jose-Recoletos, and Jay Anthony Cavales and Jorich Lyn Enoc of University of Cebu.
Aside from getting cash prizes that will make them temporarily and relatively wealthy by non-Lehman standards, the top two winners will see their work and photos published in Superbalita today and the third prize winner’s work tomorrow.
The rest will be consoled with pang-load and the option to run as candidates for the next Miss or Mister Superbalita, as the case may be. Just kidding. These students have the serious look of writers and might seriously take my word about the beauty or body appreciation contest and start working out their bodies this sem break.
So on this serious day, Sun.Star [Cebu] Superbalita is katorse anos and has been appraised as 14K. Fresh and glowing, Superbalita packs a lot of Bisaya K—kampyon, kredibilidad, kamatuoran, kaligdong, kaisog, kaangayan, katakos, kasandigan, kahanas, kasaligan, kalingawan, kinaham, komunidad, ka-Super.
