Learning out of the box

Dear Lloyd,

What do I need to do so I can get a better job than what I have now? I really don’t enjoy what I’m doing right now as a customer sales representative. There must me some things I need to do to find another meaningful profession where I can use my formal education.

Thank you so much and more power to your column!

Robert Indrinal
Caloocan City


IF your motivation to finish your college degree is to get employed afterwards, again I am sorry to say that you’ve got the wrong motivation. It would just make you end up as another bright, skilled, talented, and unemployed Filipino. But don’t let that worry you that much; after all, you are not the only hopeful jobseeker-to-be who has this kind of mindset. There are more millions out there who, like you, don’t think and work out of the box.

During my second year in college, I started to feel better. Little by little, I was able to cope with my mathematics while learning the Art of Proper Thinking. Since I was no longer working on my weakness (having found out that I was weak in my weakness and there really was no point to work on it), I decided to work on my strength instead.

And so that year, I made it to being the layout and graphics editor of the Spectrum. I painstakingly worked on every detail of the paper’s design, in the process honing my skills and creativity. I would spend at least one hour a week in a bookstore just to read design books and study different graphic techniques. I had to do this because I didn’t have the money to buy books.

During presswork, I devoted two to three overnight sessions to finish the paper’s layout. I went the extra mile to give substance to my position even as I was perfecting my skills. The result was that a year later, I became the paper’s editor in chief.

I must admit that it was the thing I had in mind the very first day I joined the college paper—to be the head of it sometime soon!

Then, sometime in February 2001, I received an invitation from Malacañang Palace. I recall that the signatory of the invitation was one of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s political officers at the time: Marc-Fabian Castrodes, who is now a lawyer, a good friend, and a personal mentor of mine.

The invitation was for a breakfast meeting of student newspaper editors with the President. That meeting gave us a rare chance to directly ask the President on issues that campus editors were curious about. For me, that meeting was an empowering initiative for campus journalists.

Attending that event gave me the idea to establish an organization of editors. So, shortly after, I called my co-participants and set a “post-event” meeting so I could present my idea to them. My goal was to get their support and eventually help me organize the group. Thus, in less than a year, we had formed the Network of Campus Journalists of the Philippines.

Founding the organization was not an easy job for me. It required positive thinking and a strong fighting spirit. Why? I was from PUP and I had to convince the editors from De La Salle University, Ateneo de Manila University, University of Sto. Tomas, University of the Philippines, and Far Eastern University to work on my idea. And organizing these young journalists of various backgrounds and points of view was certainly not an easy task.

But I had to convince myself that it was possible, that it could be done no matter how difficult it might be.

Buddy to the top,

LLOYD A. LUNA