Pinili, Ilocos Norte—Two campus journalists are among four winners in the 11th Prof. Honor Blanco Cabie Essay Writing competition launched in August and open to high school students from three institutions in this town in Ilocos Norte’s 2nd district.
The Cabie PINILI Secretariat identified the winners as: Christian Britany Barroga, (Pinili National High School), 1st; Jolina Espiritu, Sacritan Integrated School), 2nd; Shanel Jay Aguinaldo, (PNHS), 3rd; and Mark Angelo Perez, (Pinili Institute), consolation prize.
They will get their cash prizes and certificates in April 2020 during the town’s 10-day centennial fiesta celebration, at the Pinili Amphitheater south of the terraced town square.
The prizes will be from the Cabie PINILI Awards for Literature while the certificates will be given by the Pinili Local Government Unit.
The contest, limited to English essay this year, was in collaboration with the Pinili LGU headed by Mayor Rommel Labasan and Vice Mayor Maynard Francis Bumanglag.
The theme of this year’s centennial celebration, around which the informal essays revolved, is “Pinili 2020: Panangipateg ken Panangitandudo ti (sic) Naindaklan a Gapuanan, Puersa iti Masakbayan (Giving Value and Keeping Alive Standout Deeds, Driving Force for the Future).”
The board of judges was composed of Dr. Paul Blanco Zafaralla, former chairman of the Humanities Department of the UP in Los Baños (chairman); Mr. Jimbo Owen Gulle, city editor of the Manila Standard; and Dr. Carmelita B. Bagayas, principal of the Paoay North Institute.
Named after award-winning journalist and essayist Honor Blanco Cabie, who teaches journalism and literature in Metro Manila, the Cabie PINILI Literary Award for Literature in Iluko or English was founded in 2008 aimed at “encouraging Ilocano writers to chronicle in the various genres the wealth of their culture.”
This is the first time the Cabie PINILI was opened to high school students. In the previous years this contest, in fiction and poetry, was opened to Ilocano professional writers at home and abroad.
Barroga, editor in chief of his school’s newsletter The Dawn, wrote on “Scars of Yesterday: Pinili’s Celebration of Grandeur for Today and Tomorrow;” Espiritu’s was “Pinili Infused with Love, Dedication and History: Soaring High;” while Aguinaldo’s was “A Tale of Metamorphosis.” Perez’s essay was titled “Pinili: Soaring High Into The Post Centennial Rollover.”
The winners are all in Grade 12 of their respective schools, according to former Sangguniang Bayan member Evangeline Abriol-Pascua, Pinili coordinator of the contest.
Pinili became Ilocos Norte’s 17th municipality on Jan 1, 1920 by virtue of an Executive Order earlier signed in Malacañang by then-governor General Francis Burton Harrison.
