K-12, an anachronistic DepEd program

As Published in Panay News

Dated: May 20, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW

HERBERT VEGO

K-12, an anachronistic DepEd program

AS I was writing this yesterday, Department of Education Secretary Armin Luistro was expected at the Nueva Valencia High School in Nueva Valencia, Guimaras to spearhead the “Brigada Eskuela” there – meaning clean-up of school classrooms in preparing for the opening of classes. Ang sipag…

I heard a radio commentator joking that “Sec chose Guimaras because it had not been badly hit by typhoon Yolanda.”

In other words, had he chosen to go to Estancia, Iloilo instead, he would have been embarrassed with nothing to clean there anymore because entire classrooms had already been ‘cleaned’ away by the typhoon.

Would he rather not see them?

Reconstruction of wrecked schools is just one of the many problems besetting Dep Ed. Compounding that problem are the lack of classrooms and lack of teachers.

If I may say my two cents’ worth, the PNoy government should scrap Luistro’s K-12 program before it’s too late.

The clarion call of the moment is to rebuild the wrecked public and private schools. Billions of pesos would have to be defrayed to do so. Adding more classrooms for additional classes would entail added burden to the already suffering taxpayers.

On the other hand, the parents have become poorer. Even on the assumption that they have the option of enrolling their kids in free public schools, many will still be unable to shoulder the cost of their fare and allowance. Hence, extending basic elementary/high school education from 10 to 12 years on the pretext that “we have been left behind” is no longer tenable.

It’s really not too late to scrap K-12 because this year is only the 3rd year of its implementation; the third-year high school students this year would be glad to hit 4^th year and finish high school next school year.

Who cares what President Noynoy Aquino and Education Secretary Armin Luistro say?  Most Filipinos do not believe in prolonged basic education;  it would only result in more drop-outs.

There has been no evidence to show that Filipinos who spend only 10 years in basic education do not succeed. On the contrary, each of us personally knows those who can’t stay that long in school due to financial limitations.

The super typhoon has aggravated an already existing problem.

While it is true that the biggest share of the annual budget always goes to the Department of Education,  it hardly catches up with the ever-increasing number of students, teachers and classrooms to spend for.

Ask the parents. In its first two years of implementation, the government has not proven itself overcoming such old problems as inadequate supply of free textbooks for public-school students; and parents of poor children can’t afford to buy them, too.

There was no K-12 in bygone years. In those years, each student in each subject got a book, to be returned at the end of the school year for lending to the next batch of the next year. It would be more logical for government to resume this book-lending program than to defray much more money for additional curricula.

There was a time, according to our grandpas and grandmas, when outstanding elementary-school graduates were allowed to teach primary pupils.

In a pre-Yolanda editorial, this corner sounded off the statistics that Dep-Ed is aware of: Out of every 100 students who enroll in elementary school, only 58 make it to high school. Of these 58, only 33 enroll in college but only 14 finally graduate. Those who drop out do so due to the incapacity of their parents to spend for their tertiary education.

The really “mango,” on the other hand, indeed spend 12 years and even more before finishing high school. Would that make them better prepared for college?

The job market does not look for graduates who have spent more years in high school but for those who have earned skills in college. Filipino seamen, for instance, are in demand abroad because they work better than other nationals.

If our teachers go to Hong Kong to “demote” themselves as domestic helpers, it’s not because they ran short of two years in high-school. It’s because they could earn more as such in HK than as teachers here. /PN

We are now a hundred million

As Published in Panay News

Dated: July 18, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW: We are now a hundred million

By HERBERT VEGO

THE last time I talked to Iloilo provincial population officer Ramon Yee, he estimated that Philippine population had already hit 100 million. In the last six years, we have held on to our reputation as the 12th most populous nation on earth. We have advanced two steps since 1998 when we were 14th with 75.3 million.

If our growth rate stays at 2.3 percent annually, our population would rise to 118 million by 2025.

Nevertheless the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) insists, “Population is not the problem. It’s the great disparity of wealth. If the wealthy would share what they have, then population would not be a problem.”

Although I have written about the population problem many times, I am tempted to do it again in firm belief that while it may not be “the problem,” it is a problem nevertheless.

It is a problem ignored by the Roman Catholic Church which condemns artificial family planning as “pro-abortion, anti-life.”

No less than Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, past president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), has preached, “The social doctrine of the Church challenges society and government to regard population not as mere consumer but also to help and facilitate their becoming producers and formal businessmen.”

Monsignor Hernando Carbonel has called population explosion “a myth.”

That wistful thinking is easier said than done and is a myopic way of defending an undesirable situation where a poor couple makes more children than they can afford to feed and send to school in order to survive. More often than not, the cycle replicates itself in the next generation.

Doesn’t even common sense tell us that a worker making barely enough bread for himself is unfit to marry and multiply? The new family consequently becomes a burden, not an asset, to society.

In the book, “Hey Joe”, a collection of Asian travel stories, American author Ted Lerner relates the plight of Nina, an unwed 30-year-old mother of 10 children who migrates from Bacolod City to Angeles City, ending up as paramour of an American serviceman.

“Almost anywhere one travels in the Philippines,” Lerner writes, “you could

select women at random and you’d likely hear similar stories.”

Conversely and ironically, it is the rich in the Philippines who limit the number of their children to two or three to ensure their good future. That probably explains why only 10 percent of Filipinos are believed in control of 90 percent of the nation’s wealth; and 90 percent survive on 10 percnt of its wealth.

Ironically, other predominantly Catholic countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy and Poland control their birth rates despite the clergy’s admonition to the faithful to refrain from using church-banned contraceptives.

I was 10 years old and in grade four in 1960 when I first learned that the Philippines had a population of 30 million. This means that, between 1960 and today, the aforesaid population that took centuries to accumulate has more than tripled in only a half century!

Thailand, on the other hand, which had about as many people as the Philippines in 1960, has only doubled its population. Predominantly Buddhist, Thailand has an active population management.

The Thais must have used their bigger heads; ours, the smaller ones./PN

Some graduates should not have graduated

As Published in Panay News

Dated: June 16, 2014

People Powwow: Some graduates should not have graduated

By HERBERT VEGO

IN yesterday’s talk show Reklamo Publiko on Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo, host Danny Fajardo (founder and editor-in-chief of Panay News) asked Dr. Teodoro Robles, president of Central Philippine University, whether his school was offering the Journalism course.

“No,” he answered. “We only offer Mass Com.”

Without belaboring what he had in mind, Fajardo candidly told Robles that we at Panay News were having a hard time accepting applicants for reporter because even Journalism graduates could not write news.

Unbelievable? Yes, but it’s true. Some graduates are the kind who write only “pag may time.” This means that they should not have passed the course in the first place; that nothing has changed since the late 1960s when I was a journalism student myself.

In those days, our professor was often reminding our class, “If you can’t even write a simple news, you have no right to be here.” He was exasperated because most of us wrote news stories that “sounded” Greek.

After our graduation, I could not even count on 10 fingers my classmates who had landed a newspaper job.

On the other hand, I don’t have enough fingers to count my lady classmates who have resorted to post-graduate “MD” – “marriage degree,” that is – after failing to get a job.

Conversely, we have active newspaper reporters today who have had no formal education in journalism. They are here because they have the talent and the aptitude.

No wonder I don’t believe that the so-called “K-12” innovation of the Department of Education is the key to post-graduation “excellence.” Hence, imposing mandatory kindergarten and extending basic elementary/high school education from 10 to 12 years on the pretext that “we have been left behind” is no longer tenable. It would only extend the financial agony of poor parents and delay the entry of the students into the job market.

The only sane “advantage” the K-12 gives as far as the schools are concerned is added income from tuition and other school fees. Not really surprising when one realizes that Education Secretary Armin Luistro used to teach at the elitist Ateneo de Manila.

Have you ever heard of a school that discourages students from taking a particular course on the ground that his heart is not in it? I guess no.

A personal experience I would like to impart occurred in my first year in college. I was enrolled as a Veterinary Medicine student to appease my late father who had attempted to lure me into the course because of the “big demand” for veterinarians.

Fortunately, as soon as he discovered I could not even inject our pig, he asked me to shift to my choice: a four-year course in Journalism. So I “demoted” myself by moving from the prestigious University of the Philippines (UP) here in Iloilo City, to Manuel L. Quezon University (MLQU) in congested Manila.

As a parent myself today, I justify my decision with the thought that I would not have become a good vet. Success is what one makes of his gift.

May I cite the moral lesson behind two flashlights? Two men walk the road late in the afternoon. One of them shows an expensive, glittering flashlight while the other keeps quiet, hiding a cheap plastic flashlight in his pocket. When the night falls, the two switch their flashlights on. The rich man’s flashlight fails to light up while the poor man’s cheap flashlight shines brightly. So which of the two flashlights is the successful flashlight?  You know the answer.

Our worth lies in our capacity to exploit our God-given ability./PN

God in the mind of a top lawyer

As Published in Panay News

Dated: June 18, 2014

People Powwow: God in the mind of a top lawyer 

BY HERBERT VEGO

LAWYER Edwin R. Catacutan has made a name here in Iloilo City not only because of his legal expertise but also because of his “incursion into Christian theology.” Having received a copy his book Creation, Fall, and Redemption, I would like to briefly reflect on the salient points of his book.

For this is one book that can rightly be judged by its cover: a colorful telescope image of an outburst of Monocerotis, a star which is about 20,000 light years away from our sun, echoing the Bible verse: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” (Psalm 19:1)

Catacutan alludes to the first three chapters of the book of Genesis on creation and fall of man, which is less than 0.3 percent of the entire Bible, as “the substantive law defining the individual’s rights and conditions of having and maintaining eternal life.”

The author agrees with Blaise Pascal, a 17th Century French mathematician behind the famous Pascal’s Wager.

“If there is no God,” Catacutan simplifies Pascal, “then no one is benefited; but if there is a God, the believer wins and the unbeliever loses.”

The lawyer believes that while the Bible does not explain but simply asserts confidently the creation of the heavens and the earth, they could not have always been there.

He quotes famous physicists, including Paul Davies, who wrote that “the essential hypothesis – that there was some sort of creation – seems, from the scientific point of view, compelling.”

God did not have to create, Catacutan asserts, to sustain Himself. He did so “for His pleasure.” When He finished his work, He found the entire creation “very good.”

He created Adam and Eve in his image (Genesis 1:27), but with “free will.”

It was out of such free will that they disobeyed God’s instruction to them to refrain from eating the “forbidden fruit” of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”; otherwise, “you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17)

It was then that Satan burst into the picture, deceiving Eve that God did not want them to eat the forbidden fruit because “God knows that when you eat it, you will be like God.”

Their disobedience, Catacutan explains, marked “the fall of man,” shedding off immortality.

“The bodies of Adam and Eve,” Catacutan writes, “immediately became vulnerable to the death process of diseases, old age and decay… The Bible says that Adam lived 930 years.”

It was a “death penalty” handed down to us, the descendants of the first man and woman.

Catacutan asks us to fear not. The Redeemer would come by “virgin birth” and save us by grace. We can claim back the immortality promised by the most popular New Testament verse, John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Catacutan explains, “Jesus’ coming to earth in the flesh, His dying on the cross and His resurrection completed the redemption process from the side of God. It perfected the justice-compliance stage. In this context, Jesus is the last messenger from God as He himself is the message.”

The lawyer’s book offers Jesus Christ as the only way to eternal life after death. Either man believes in Him for the transformation of the soul from perishable to imperishable in the resurrection or stands condemnation by default.

If there is no discussion on the so called “fire of hell” that is widely believed to be the destination of non-believers, it could be because the Bible itself has no adequate discussion on the matter. In fact, he refers to his son Edwin Jason as the only one in his family, being “now with the Lord,” who knows all the answers to the questions that he had been asking about./PN

My brother’s triumphant death

As Published in Panay News

Dated: June 27, 2014

People Powwow: My brother’s triumphant death

By HERBERT VEGO

FOR a full  17 years and five months, my brother Efren savored 17 years and five months of “bonus life” until death did us part on June 23 this year at the age of 62 years and nine months.

What I mean is that he could have died at the operating table in 1997 yet at age 45. He was ready for that, knowing he had pancreatic cancer.

However, he lived on to be part and parcel of the modernized social media that we know today as Facebook on the Internet. His FB page attracts attention because of his head “implanted” on the body of a robust torso; and another head on the formally-attired US President Barack Obama delivering a speech. A backdrop behind the “implants” are these words: “Nothing other than my last breath can end my life. We learn from different sources but we get the best education from diversity. Even a turtle, if it never gives up, can finish the race.”

Efren Legaspi Vego finished the race ahead of us his siblings, breathing his last at 4:30 a.m. on Monday. He had expected it even much earlier while pinning hope for longer life.

In January 1997, my 45-year-old brother heard life’s most deafening news while confined at the United Doctors Medical Center in Quezon City, awaiting surgery after he had been diagnosed to be agonizing from cancer of the pancreas. It was his doctor speaking: “I will make the last four months of your life as comfortable as possible.”

Doc’s verdict must have scared Efren more than his eight-centimeter tumor. It could only mean that, despite the impending surgery, his disease would end his life within four months. In that case, why would he have himself operated on?

Not liking what he had heard, he scouted for a better surgeon. A fellow police officer, Nick Caba, referred him to Dr. Celso Fidel, a military surgeon at the AFP Medical Center, who candidly told him about studies revealing that “only one in a thousand pancreatic cancer patients worldwide survive Whipple’s surgery.”

Whipple’s is a complicated surgical procedure aimed at cutting away the almost inaccessible head of the pancreas.

With or without surgery, a pancreatic cancer patient could enjoy only six more months to live.

“I’ll go for it,” my brother answered, knowing he could not even be one of the lucky “one in a thousand” if he refused to go under knife.

On January 27, 1997, Dr. Fidel and his team of military surgeons performed an eight-hour operation that removed the ampullary mass at the head of his pancreas, including his gall bladder and portion of his stomach.

After his surgery, he applied for disability retirement that would entitle him to a monthly pension big enough to support his family comfortably. He was a cop assigned to the Quezon City Police Office.

In lighter moments, his friends would kid him about life being unfair to good cops. It’s the bad ones – especially protectors of drug lords and crime syndicates – who live longer.

Efren, a good cop, has already proven them wrong. Since that surgical procedure, my brother Efren has added 17 more years to his life and more life to his years together with his beloved wife Amparo and their children Walter, Cheryl and Honey; and on many occasions with us his siblings, namely Herbert, Jesse, Azucena, Jasmin and Randy.

He also cherished his high school classmates, using Facebook as venue to organize annual reunions.

On May 2 this year, he posted a message that he might not be around to attend their May 3 reunion in San Jose, Antique due to failing health.

The following day, he posted another message declaring that he had recovered and was strong enough to fly from Manila for the reunion. He arrived there on time and hugged everybody, whispering, “Let me hug you for the last time.”

Our brother Efren was rushed to the Commonwealth Medical Center in Quezon City on June 11, 2013.

Rather than be instructed, he instructed his family and his doctors to do away with all “human intervention” whenever his debilitating health could not take it anymore.

He returned to his creator at 4:30 in the morning of Monday, June 23, 2014.

He will be cremated today to immediately fulfill the Biblical injunction: “Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return.”/PN

Writing for a lifetime

As Published in Panay News

Dated: July 2, 2014

People Powwow: Writing for a lifetime

BY HERBERT VEGO

LAST week, I was probably at the nadir of my writing life when my dear brother Efren passed away in Quezon City. I had to spend most of my waking hours receiving sympathizers at the funeral parlor where he was lying in state. Then, too, I had to steal time to write and edit online even while grieving. I consequently realized that journalism is akin to show business: “Come hell or high water, the show must go on.”

But of course, writing for a living in my entire lifetime is not a curse but a blessing. As long as I write, I hope to keep my mind sharp and resistant to senility.

It’s my writing career that has seen my son through elementary, secondary and nursing schools. Now 41, he has blazed an enviable nursing career: five years working at the Family Clinic in Quezon City, another five years in Abu Dhabi, two years in Canada, and now in his fourth year in New York.

If I were to live my life over, I would probably opt for a more financially rewarding career. But why should I regret having chosen journalism when it has always been my destiny? I guess every man is what he is because of past circumstances.

In my case, it all began in my sixth grade when my English teacher rated my themes more or less “90”.

In my third year at the Antique National School, I took and passed the qualifying examination for staff members of the high school organ, “The Madia-as”, bagging the position of news editor. From then on, I set my eyes on a writing career, which I thought was, and still is, honorable; not everybody could write.

My father opposed my plan: “Oh, no, writing will not make you rich. I have a better idea. Why don’t you become a veterinarian? There is great demand for animal doctors in government.”

I insisted on following my aptitude and finished a four-year AB-Journalism course at Manuel L. Quezon University in Quiapo, Manila.

It has been 44 years since then. In my first 10 years in the profession, I handled various jobs as press relation officer for movie and music companies, editor of an entertainment tabloid, stage show producer and freelance journalist in Manila. I came to Iloilo in 1981 to edit Panay News, which started as a weekly. It has grown into a daily – a feat many other local papers have tried but failed.

The transition from typewriter to computer has not been an easy learning experience for an old wordsmith. But having overcome the difficulty, I look forward to  riding further the technology wave.

Admittedly, however, making a living writing is no easy task in this country. It’s the rare writer who can splurge off his or her earnings. For those of us who simply love the job, survival is enough.

You must be familiar with the saying that those who can write, do; those who can’t, teach. I think that’s unfair for teachers who can write. Had I earned an MA or PhD degree, I would have taught for a living, too.

Of course, there are others like us with the ability to create new realities out of thin air — unheralded painters, singers, actors and other talents who thrive on the need to express themselves even in thankless jobs.

What about you? Do you make a living doing what you love?  Why is it so important?

Well, it’s because you love it and because self-expression is the stuff that human civilization is made of. Be proud because you produce what others consume./PN

Why Binay now fears PCOS

As Published in Panay News

Dated: July 4, 2014

People Powwow: Why Binay now fears PCOS

VICE PRESIDENT Jejomar Binay – a declared presidential aspirant – has repeatedly warned the Commission on Elections (Comelec) against reusing the so-called PCOS (precinct count optical scan) machines in the forthcoming 2016 presidential election for fear that it would be manipulated in his opponent’s favor. He could be correct.

But why is he complaining only now?

Was it by the grace of PCOS that he defeated Mar Roxas for vice president in 2010?

Was it via PCOS that his then unknown daughter Nancy won a Senate seat in 2013?

Of course we don’t expect Binay to say yes to the two questions, since it would insinuate his own complicity with the Comelec. But it’s an indication that he fears that the agency notorious for dagdag-bawas manipulation would “anoint” his opponent in 2016?

Take note that it would be a rematch between him and Roxas, but for a higher position.

Remember that in 2010, no less than part of the campaign machinery of then presidential candidate Noynoy Aquino – the so-called Noybi group – conspired against his running mate Roxas? “Noybi” is short-cut for Noynoy and Binay.

In the aftermath of the 2013 senatorial election, no less than presidential aunt Margarita “Tingting” Cojuangco had accused PNoy of having made a P30-million “cashunduan” with Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Sixto Brillantes to rig the May 13, 2013 senatorial election. Allegedly as a result, nine out of 12 Team PNoy candidates (coalition of Liberal Party and allies) won.

Tingting had run under UNA but lost on 23rd place.

“The Team PNoy senatorial candidates were digitally elected and the real voters were disenfranchised,” she charged.

Whether or not she has axe to grind against her nephew Noynoy, her allegation is not without probative value. Her election watchdog group,  Isang Bayan, Isang Boto,  had  been at the forefront of a fact-finding mission aimed at unearthing the ways and means that Comelec had employed to rig election returns, to wit: Printing of excess ballots to cover up and change the real and actual ballots so that manual count will match the apparent programmed results; pre-programming of PCOS and servers; and Comelec’s intentional disregard of safeguards like the so-called “source code” that could have prevented electronic cheating.

The Isang Bayan, Isang Boto watchdog, she said, had done manual counts in a number of precincts, which showed that while Team PNoy got padded votes, other candidates got reduced votes.

For example, she cited a precinct where “in the manual count, the leading senatorial candidate obtained 193 votes but in the PCOS count, the candidate got 388 votes or an additional 185 votes.”

Even if Tingting made no direct reference to Senator Grace Poe as the “leading senatorial candidate” there could be no doubt she was referring to her. Weeks before the May 13 election, the mind-conditioning surveys of the Social Weather Station (SWS) had placed her on the 10th spot – way behind Loren Legarda, Alan Peter Cayetano, Nancy Binay, Cynthia Villar, Francis Escudero, Bam Aquino, Koko Pimentel, JV Ejercito and Sonny Angara – and yet she emerged number one.

What could be the most logical explanation for the phenomenon?

Had SWS so underestimated the strength of Grace Poe that the “manipulators” had to pad her votes to the max?

I found it unimaginable that former Senator Richard Gordon lost the senatorial race for the first time. How could unheralded neophytes Nancy Binay and Bam Aquino have outpaced him?

As lawyers would have put it, res ipsa loquitor./PN

My first article printed in the Weekly Nation in 1971

THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE MAN WHO TWICE BESTED NORA AUNOR IN SINGING TILTS

By Herbert L. Vego

(As published in Weekly Nation, January 25, 1971)

HE beat today's phenomenal singing sensation twice.  And yet, unlike Nora Aunor, he has not yet burst out from the cocoon of anonymity, although he used to be Nora's partner long before Tirso Cruz III, Manny de Leon and Victor Laurel came along.

"Nora and I were both born and raised in Iriga City.  In fact, we were schoolmates from grade four to second year high school.  Those years, the two of us made good as singing sweethearts of our school."

Speaking is Elmer Aballa, a little known name, a bolt out of the blue, what with this revelation of his good old days with Nora.  And to say that he beat Nora twice arouses great surprise.  For who is he anyway?

This writer came to know Elmer by accident when somebody in town made this remark:  "There's a friend of Nora Aunor who beat Nora herself, but he must be dogged by back luck since he is still groping in the dark for success."  That aroused my curiosity to inquire about this fellow and to meet him personally.  In a week's time, Elmer showed up for a hearty interview.

During his first three years at the Iriga Central School, Elmer Aballa earned the title of "the song sparrow of Iriga" from his teachers.  He was always asked to do a song in school programs.  When he was in grade four, Nora Villamayor came along.

"This newcomer," Elmer recalls, "enrolled in the same section (one) where I belonged.  I learned that she had been born in Iriga, too, but that she had gone to Manila to study in grades one, two and three.  During the first days of classes, some of the boys and girls teased her, 'Negra!  Bulilit!'

"We discovered that Nora has a golden voice.  Her voice was enough to shut the mouths of her teasers.  From then on, I had a partner in the person of Nora Villamayor.  We two were always chosen to represent our school in district meets.  Actually, Nora's part in most of these meets was declamation; she was more of a declaimer then, both winning and losing at times, same with me as a singer.

"Nora and I both belonged to a poor family.  Her father was a porter.  My old man was a Philippine Air Force crew member receiving four pesos a day.  But poverty didn't deter us from our obsession of becoming successful singers someday.  We both finished elementary grades and graduated in 1964.  After that, we thought we would be on our own -- quitting school and joining choral groups."

But in July of 1964 when the new schoolyear opened, Elmer and Nora found each other enrolled in the same school again -- this time at the high school department of Mabini Memorial University.  Their parents decided that they continue their studies.  Elmer and Nora agreed to keep the ball rolling as singing partners again.

One morning while Elmer was studying his lessons in the library, Nora came over with a jolly message:  there would be an amateur show at Nabua, Camarines Sur the following night.  Elmer agreed to Nora's suggestion that he go with her to join the contest.  They joined.  Singing Granada.  Elmer bagged the first prize of P50, edging out Nora, whose You And The Night And The Music placed her second with P30.  It was past midnight when the show ended; no transportation was available to take them home to Iriga.  Nora and Elmer walked home with only the moonlight to guide them the distance of three kilometers.  Back home, their parents were the proudest of 'em all.

In the middle part of December 1964, their principal, Timoteo Panga, called Nora and Elmer to his office, requesting them to represent the freshmen in the intramural.  They had to compete against each other, however, since only one would be sent to Cabanatuan City for the national PRISAA MEET IN 1965.  It was Elmer who made it to the PRISAA.  This, then, was the second time Elmer beat Nora.

"Nora was a good sport that early," Elmer avers.  "When I left for the PRISAA, Nora was my most enthusiastic wel-wisher.  It was unfortunate I lost by some points to a Cebuana!"

The opening of the schoolyear in 1965 found Nora and Elmer high school sophomores still at the Mabini Memorial University.  Early part of the second semester in December, however, Nora had to bid Elmer goodbye.  Her auntie Belen in Manila had asked her to study at the Centro Escolar University.  But education would prove later to be secondary to Nora's personal plans while in Manila.

Elmer decided to keep on singing even if he had to commute to Naga City.  He joined the Darigold Jamboree in Naga City over dzGE and was proclaimed champion for the year 1965 during the show's grand finals.

Nora must have heard of Elmer's good luck.  For in the summer of 1966, she took a vacation to Iriga and made use of it by joining the Naga Darigold Jamboree, too.  She did make it as a champion but only for two weeks, unlike Elmer who had pushed through seven weeks of defending his crown until finally owning it for good.

But Nora was not the type of person who would easily give up.  When she returned to Manila, she joined an even more prestigious contest.  Leila Benitez' Darigold Jamboree over dzRH.  There she held on to the championship for 14 consecutive weeks and on the 15th week got edged out.  Elmer had been following her career over the radio in Iriga.

In 1967, Nora Villamayor received her trophy as the year's grand national champion of Tawag Ng Tanghalan.  Prior to this, she had placed second but had tried out once again, retaining the title for several weeks until the final triumph.

This big news saturated practically every barber shop, beauty shop and household in Iriga.  Elmer felt a bit bogged down just thinking that a girl he had defeated twice was already carving for herself a national name; but being Nora's townmate and childhood chum, Elmer was himself beaming with pride.  Eventually, he motored all the way from Iriga to Manila just to see Nora at the ABS-CBN studios in October 1967.  Nora was rehearsing her songs when Elmer arrived bu she asked for a one-hour recess upon recognizing her visitor.  For one hour, Nora and Elmer, recalled the good old days.  This would later prove to be Elmer's last talk with Nora, for when Elmer attempted to see Nora last November just before she left for Hollywood, the guards of Channel 9, where Nora was performing, would not allow him to enter the studio and he was just at the audience booth.

Graduating from high school in April 1968, Elmer decided to reside in Manila and seek greener pastures.

Almost three years have elapsed since then and Elmer has been working hard finding a place in the sun.  Only trouble is that his climb has been quite slow.

For instance, he was not given a second chance like Nora after had placed second in Tawag Ng Tanghalan in December 1968.

In January 1969, Elmer studied voice culture in Cubao under the private tutorship of Prof. Grace Turla Melendrez, finishing it in one year and a half.

That year Elmer started joining different radio and tv shows.  The year ended with a good deal of laurels to his credit:  as a three-week champion of dzXL's Talents Unlimited, as a second placer on Channel 5's On Stage, as a four-week champion of Channel 2's Oras Ng Ligaya.

Last summer (April 1970), Elmer joined the audience participation of the Monday edition of Stop, Look And Listen (Channel 2) under the hostage of Eddie Mesa, Carina Afable and Joey Lardizabal.  He was the undisputed week-after-week champion of the show until he was hired by the UP Mobile Theater.  For about six months, he went with the choral group hopping from one province to another in singing engagements.

Later it became impossible for him to stay with the theater:  a ray of success was finally alighting on him.  Elmer is now a regular performer in three radio programs, on two tv shows and a first-class discotheque.

This young fellow of 18, the third of four children of Moises Aballa and Jovita Jacob, shoulders a herculean responsibility.  His father in Iriga, now a retired PAF enlisted man, is suffering from thrombosis and his mother has to spend her time caring for him.  Only the eldest in the family, a sister teaching in high school, is gainfully employed.  And so Elmer has to help financially.

Elmer's wish for 1971 is to make it this time as recording artist.  He is still waiting for somebody to salvage him from anonymity.