Veritas
The one thing that people kept asking me when they first found out about my Grade 10 elective choice was, “Why EngJourn?”
I’m not known for being an English nut. I’ve more traditionally leaned towards the physical sciences, and even now computer science remains as my passion.
What attracted me to EngJourn, however, was not what I thought I was good at. It was about being able to do what I think is right. I wasn’t raised as someone who simply accepted the status quo. I was continually challenged to think for myself and realize that not everyone is right all the time — not even the people you respect, and especially not yourself.
Journalism and writing were ways of sharing my thoughts to the world. I can most likely say the same for my fellow members of the Editorial Board. We wanted you, the student body, to feel the same way — to not be afraid to express your thoughts and to always push for what is right.
For the last two years, we’ve worked long hours to produce quality content for The Science Scholar. We’ve come a long way since then. Not only did we publish four issues of the newspaper, we also pushed to develop our online platforms to deliver our content faster. Our community engagement program, #PisaySpeaks, gave the school community a chance to express their thoughts on the issues that matter. And we intensified our coverage on important school events like the November anti-Marcos rally and last school year’s elections.
Most importantly, we never stopped breaking boundaries. Although not everyone in the Pisay community may have agreed with the content we published, we sought to make sure that it would be able to spark a conversation or to catalyze a change. After all, a journalist’s mission is to seek and expose what’s right, in the hopes that someone out there will realize what needs to be done. We’d like to think that somehow, one of our articles inspired you, the reader, to make a change in your community, even if we ourselves can only do so much as write.
We’d like to pass this fervor on to the next editorial board. We’ll still remain in The Science Scholar, albeit serving in a limited capacity. But you guys are the future of this publication, and we think we need a new set of people who are passionate for the truth.
Our tenure was not without fault; I’d personally change a million things about the last two years if I could. We hope you learn to be better from our mistakes and continue serving the Pisay community with the same ideals that we set forth two years ago.
As a final word to the new editorial board, the new staff writers from Batch 2020, and to everyone reading this article right now:
You probably know that we’re all required to write “Truth, Excellence, Service” on top of all our quizzes now. When you write something like that in all your papers daily for a year, even more, the brain starts to internalize it as muscle memory. Eventually, those words will lose their meaning to you.
Don’t let that happen.
With or without a reminder, a Pisay scholar should be able to live and act by those values in everything they do. Our great country is in a time of constant change, and so is our beloved school. What we need, now more than ever, are students who are able to think critically for themselves and do what is right for their community and their country, especially when the wrong ideas start to take over.
So, in everything you do, let truth be your guide, excellence be your goal, and service be your mission.
Keep on fighting the good fight.
