19/11/2025
| Newsworthy
by Lance Leal
That Division School Press Conference was a blur—hot, sticky, and tangled in a series of unexpected twists of events. But how exactly did I get there?
Jamie, Santi, and Andrew stood their ground. Bella gave the masses a voice to what dangers they found. Shaneen and Kaitlin reported their ideas in motion. Marcus, Eleine, and Alyana gave their best shots with steady devotion. Robin and Stephanie wrote humanity in every line—Shad, Rae, and Nathan pieced together the facts to make them shine. Chaye and Ford drew their best. Natalie fixed her best. Zairah held her heart up high. And the rest is up for history to tie.
Arriving at Commonwealth High School felt strangely familiar—like the public school I attended in first grade. Santi and I headed to the court where the event would be held. We were the first ones there after accidentally joining the Junior High service. The campus was filled with greenery, complete with a greenhouse that seemed to breathe life into the place.
Soon, the rest of our fellow journalists arrived, along with students from Districts 1 to 6. I recognized a few faces from Melchora Aquino High School. I found myself wondering how I—a literary writer—ended up competing in news. Two genres on opposite ends of the rainbow. A capybara among a bask of crocodiles.
I’ve always belonged to stories, metaphors, and imagination. I write figuratively, not literally. Yet here I was, thrown into the strict, sharp world of news—a universe where every word must behave and every sentence must serve the truth and nothing but the truth. It was the first twist of events I didn’t see coming.
Everything was taking too long to start, and my mind drifted back to that day in August—the moment it all began.
The whiteboard that day was filled with names for the upcoming district competition. News… Feature… I wanted Feature desperately; that was my strongest sword. But it was already full. Then I noticed how few names were listed under News, and in a sudden, reckless leap of faith, I wrote mine down. A literary writer by heart… volunteering for the most formal category.
I mean—My heart has always been intertwined with stories. Both tell stories.
How hard could it be? Right? …right.
After many trials and tribulations, I learned the inverted pyramid, different leads, and the art of murdering my own imagination. My first draft looked like an essay, but slowly, painfully, I adapted. With Ate Seleeya and Shad guiding me, I learned how to make my words behave.
Then came the District competition. I told myself that simply being there was already an award. To show my passion for writing and journalism was the award. And being in the same room as award-winning student journalists was surreal enough. Winning anything else would just be the cherry on top. And despite my mistakes—my literary devices, my unnecessarily long headline, and countless other errors—my name was called during the awarding. I still remember how surreal that felt.
I snapped back to reality when the parade of colors finally began. Four hours had passed since we arrived. The court was suffocating—no electric fans, the heat unbearable, and the rain pouring outside only made everything smell and feel worse. Students filled the space: 20 categories, around 120 competitors each. Someone was speaking too loudly onstage; everything was overstimulating. And I was wearing two layers of uniform. Before the competition even began, it already felt like it had ended.
Many several speeches later, we were sent to our assigned rooms. The chairs were torn, barely functional. The bathroom was neglected. No fans were working. A reminder of how the Department of Education continues to fail its public schools.
Before writing, we were called into another room for a short meeting with our judge, Bam Alegre—a professional journalist from GMA Integrated News. He gave advice, explained how he’d check 120 articles, and delivered the line that haunted all of us: “If the headline fails, your article fails.” No pressure, he said...
The competition began. We returned to our room. Fact sheets were distributed. Three pages. Three pages detailing the Zaldy Co investigation from September to November 2025. It felt like a prank—but it wasn’t.
Decision-making would determine everything. I focused on the most recent developments: Zaldy Co admitting he stole, allegedly under the command of President Marcos and Martin Romualdez. Our time was extended from one hour to an hour and thirty minutes—an acknowledgment that the fact sheets were punishingly long, especially compared to the English category, which received six pages.
The real fun came after. I dragged Jamie, Santi, and Andrew to buy well-deserved ice cream, teased Zairah about the boy she found handsome who was also a sci-tech writer, and convinced them to take a picture together. Maybe fate will do the rest? Chaos, laughter—all the twists and turns that made the day worth remembering.
Back at FEU, when everything was said and done. Shaneen, Marcus, Andrew, and I sat at the FEU Diliman football field, unraveling our realizations and reminiscing about the court we once owned at Melchora Aquino High School. We ended the night sharing one tub of coffee ice cream at 7/11: a news writer, a column writer, a mobile journalist, and a photojournalist—four people tied together by exhaustion and unexpected friendship. An unexpected highlight of my first and hopefully not the last press conference.
Later, I realized I misunderstood the fact sheet and made my headline one-sided. A classic literary-writer-in-news twist—emotion first, facts second. Maybe it’s the end of an era… Or maybe it’s just another plot point in a story I never expected to write. After all, a literary writer running up a news stage would be the biggest twist yet.
But of course—that’s just another series of unexpected twists of events.
Cartoon by Keira Docena
Publication Material by Andrea Gonzales
