Seven entries of Letranites bagged awards in the 15th Philippine Quill Awards last July 5, 2017 at the Marriott Grand Ballroom, Newport City, Pasay.
Different groups from Advertising, Broadcasting, and Communication programs bagged awards for the documentaries they produced for their Writing for Entertainment TV and Radio documentary subjects.
Advertising’s Adspeak and Adtivate, Broadcasting’s “Parang Walang Disabilidad (PWD) and Communication’s Kalyesa, Ilog Waga, Yaman and ‘Bata-bata, Pagasa ka pa ba?’ secured awards of excellence in the nation’s most prestigious awarding ceremony for communication professionals.
iCOMM guru and mentor of the teams, Inst. Robert Leeroy Lim is more than ecstatic for the receiving of awards.
“Of course, I’m very proud of my students because it only means that the materials we produced in our classroom activities met global standards for business communication practices,” Lim said as he praises the products his students produced.
He added that the recognition was foreseen because he knew from the very start that his students were destined for greatness. “I always believed in their ability to produce worthy and quality projects,” he said.
“Letran is one of the best communication schools in country that has global standards in communication and our products, (which are) the students, are ready to face the world of media and communications,” Lim stated.
Mikhaela Santos of the Kalyesa Team shared that they got an incomplete (INC) grade for the writing for radio subject before they won the award.
“Because of this radio documentary, the whole group got an INC grade in our writing for radio class. Kasi late kami nakapagpasa ng output and nitong bago magpasukan lang na asikaso ‘yung INC. Thanks to Heaven, naasikaso naman namin and nung nalaman namin na we won, nagulat talaga kami ng sobra,” Santos narrated. “Nasabi na lang namin na worth it ‘yung INC. Everything has paid off.”
On the other hand, the PWD film produced by Broadcasting students led by its director Janelle Cu won best Sulyap Documentary in ExcelLance 2016.
“The documentary was produced for Sulyap 2016. It’s for our Writing for Entertainment TV. Di ko inasahan na mananalo kami kasi habang ginagawa namin ‘yan, we had doubts, na-down kami,” Cu shared. “We just tried our luck sa Quill, medyo mahirap requirements niya kasi ‘di lang siya basta pasa ng material, may write-up pa siya. Finally, after several revisions and with the help of Sir Leeroy, we won.”
Meanwhile, Ilog Waga’s director Jae-re Liwanag together with his team, said the award is just a bonus in the production team because of the benefit of being a ‘storyteller.’
“As a student, big deal siya kasi Phil Quill ‘yan eh, laging mataas ang standards talaga. But then, these things naman are bonus nalang talaga sa amin sa production and we are grateful for that,” said Liwanag, saying that they were contented that their work and the Colegio were both recognized. “Manalo or hindi sa mga competitions, ang importante we did our best to tell a story and more importantly na-practice namin ‘yung natutunan namin sa Colegio.”
Colegio de San Juan de Letran was also among the nominees for the 2016 Philippine Quill School of the Year award.
(First published on The LANCE's July 2017 Issue)