VETERAN radio broadcaster Buen Pogtes Algono could not believe at first that he was among the 3,992 passers of the 2022 bar examination.
Algono of radio station dyHP was in Tabor Hills in Barangay San Jose, Cebu City to light a candle when word reached him that he had passed the bar.
He said his news director Aida dela Cruz called him on his cell phone to inform him of the results.
“I haven’t even struck my candle yet when I already got several calls. I really didn’t believe the first call I got, but when Aida called, it was then that I said, I really passed,” Algono, 49, said in Cebuano.
He said it was not easy attending law school at the University of the Visayas (UV) while working as a broadcaster for dyHP and writing for the newspaper, Cebu Daily News, in early 2000.
Algono did not immediately take the bar after getting his law degree in 2007 due to financial difficulties, especially since examinations were then held in Manila.
He failed the exam the first time he took it in Manila. On his second try, Algono was not able to take the first regionalized bar exam in Cebu in February 2022 because he tested positive for Covid-19 the day before the exams.
However, Algono did not give up and persisted in his studies to fulfill his dream of becoming a lawyer. He believes God had a purpose why he was unable to take the bar exam at the time.
Sacrifices
Algono made as a study shed a Mulberry tree at the back of the dyHP building where he read his bar review books after the building’s management gave him permission to build a roof around the tree.
It was there where he frequently stayed till the wee hours of the morning to study, enduring mosquito bites and the discomfort of getting wet when it rained heavily.
All these sacrifices paid off.
Algono said his prayer and the encouragement of his coworkers greatly helped him.
Algono started his career in 1997 as a correspondent of dyRC until 1999. He moved to dyLA in the same year,
In 2022, he began to anchor dyHP’s “Straight to the Point Evening Edition” until the present.
Algono hails from Agsungot, a mountain barangay in Cebu City. He has four children. He is the first lawyer of the Pogtes-Algono clan.
Beauty queen
Meanwhile, former Binibining Pilipinas winner Eva Pyschee Patalinjug added another title to her name after she successfully hurdled the 2022 bar exams.
The Lapu-Lapu City native posted a screenshot of her name in the Supreme Court’s list of new lawyers released on Friday, April 15, 2023, on Instagram.
“Finally, ATTY. EVA PSYCHEE S. PATALINJUG, R.N,” she wrote.
Patalinjug, who earned her law degree from the University of San Carlos last year, is also a registered nurse.
“May this serve as an inspiration to continue to strive hard, no matter what life throws at you to never give up, never surrender and rise against all odds,” she said.
Patalinjug won Bb. Pilipinas Grand International 2018 and represented the country in a pageant in Thailand.
Aside from Patalinjug, two more Filipino beauty queens also passed the 2022 bar exams — reigning Reina Internacional del Chocolate Jerelleen Rodriguez and Miss Philippines Air 2020 Patrixia Santos. (AYB, TPT, KJF)