The competition judges were Atty. Cyrus Victor Tiamson, Dina Jacosalem (Administrative Officer, RHS Main), Elmer Martin (Head, Political Science Department, Rizal Technological University), and me (as usual, taking pictures of others!)
Order, waiter!
And the winner is ... RHS Main!
The former RTC building occupied by Rizal High School since the middle 1990s.
The new RHS Main Building
Some 6,344 law graduates (a record number) are taking the bar examinations on the four Sundays of September at the De La Salle University campus in Taft Avenue, Manila. Administered by the Supreme Court, the bar exam is the final hurdle for these graduates from some 100 law schools in the Philippines after some eight years of hard work and rigorous studies.
The annual bar exams are considered to be the most celebrated licensure exam in the Philippines. (Six or seven of our country’s presidents were lawyers, while a lot of our senators and congressmen, past and present, are lawyers.) The various law schools, academic organizations, fraternities and sororities conduct their “bar operations” in support of their graduates or members. They provide food, transportation, review materials and encouragement, in the midst of a fiesta atmosphere in front of DLSU. As early as 2 or 3 in the morning, these groups stake out their places setting up tents, tables and chairs, sound equipment, etc. As the examinees start coming in at around 5 AM, there’s also fireworks, street dancing, cheers and words of encouragement from anxious relatives, schoolmates and friends. The grandest celebration takes place at the end of the exams, which falls this year on September 24.
The area in front of DLSU, from Quirino Avenue to Vito Cruz, is closed to traffic from 4 AM up to 6 PM. Some 1,398 court personnel are overseeing the exams, with bomb disposal experts, police officers and medical teams providing assistance to the examinees and the crowd waiting outside DLSU.
Previously, a bar examinee who failed for three straight times was required to take a one-year refresher course in law schools. After the refresher course, he or she was allowed to take the bar exams again. Should he fail to pass the bar, he/she was again required to take the refresher course. Each retake, the examinee was required to pay higher fees. Since last year, however, the Supreme Court has implemented the “five strike rule” which means that a bar examinee is only allowed to take the bar exams a total of five times. Based on studies, most of the bar passers are first-timers, and the Supreme Court has decided that if a person doesn’t pass the bar even after five takes, he/she most probably won’t ever pass the bar. The fewer number of bar takers would then lighten the load on the bar examiners (lawyers selected by the Supreme Court to draft the questions and check the papers).
Anyone who wants to become a lawyer is required to first take a preparatory 4-year college course. This may be any course - Education, Engineering, Accounting, science courses, etc - as long as the required subjects are completed. My preparatory course was AB English (I am a Philippine Christian University graduate in the late 70’s), and I would advise any high school graduate thinking about becoming a lawyer to consider as a good preparatory course the following: Journalism, Economics, Accounting, and Legal Management.
Then the college graduate takes the 4-year Bachelor of Laws in any recognized school (the “LlB” stands for “Lleyes Baccalaureate”). In most law schools, except for the premier schools like UP, Ateneo and San Beda, majority of the students are working students and classes are usually scheduled on evenings. I’m a proud graduate of Jose Rizal College (now known as Jose Rizal University) and I also experienced the hardships and travails of working in the daytime and going to law school at night.
After graduating from law school, he/she now takes the six-month review course.
To this year’s bar examinees, I will say just one thing about the bar exams:
Quiz lang yan!
Some 100 students from Caniogan Elementary School, Maybunga Elementary School, De Castro Elementary School and San Miguel Elementary School attended the two-day conference featuring resource talks and competitions in various aspects of journalism. I gave the OHP lecture on photojournalism and then selected the winning entries. Congratulations to all the winners and the participants!
Some 15 students from the grade and high school departments attended the three-hour seminar I gave last Saturday. The lecture-seminar, coordinated by Ms. Imelda Ferrer, is part of the school's preparation for the Division Press Conference. Thanks to the students for their interest and enthusiasm and for bearing with my corny jokes and stories!
The essence of portraiture is to capture or express an individual’s personality, to show something about the person’s life or work. As such, portrait photography need not be confined within the studio; it encompasses all kinds of ways of portraying people (like the so-called “environmental portrait” which we’ll discuss below).
Furthermore, portraits can be close-ups, full shots (from head to foot) or long shots (the individual shown in relation to his or her environment).To do portrait photography on a limited, shoestring budget, we have to consider three things: the lens to use, the light source, and the physical setting.
Since we’re doing portraits on a shoestring budget, the light source need not be expensive, elaborate studio lights with umbrellas, reflectors, etc. In the picture above, my yearbook staffers and I had covered up all the windows of an abandoned room with newspapers, thus plunging the whole room into darkness, except for the light coming from the slightly open door.
The pictures above (in full color!) are another example of environmental portraits. It’s a portrait of my nephew Gino in his natural environment – with his dolls and toys, and with a flower hat during a school presentation in Greenhills Christian Fellowship. Gino is cute because he looks like me. Hey, what can I say? Cuteness is in our genes!
What if you want to shoot somebody’s portrait but you’re in the wrong location, you don’t have the right viewpoint as when your subject’s back is turned towards you as in the two pictures below? What do you do? Call out your subject’s name to get his or her attention. When your subject turns towards you, take the picture. For example, you can say, “Hey, Angel! Kahit isang sulyap lang, Darna!”
Practical suggestions in shooting portraits
Portraits need not be of a single person only; there’s such a thing as group portrait, okay? You can liven up a portrait through the appropriate props.
