LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The surviving contender of the Cordillera to the top 30 shortlist of the Search for Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines (TOSP) challenged today’s youth to have the sense of leadership and spirit of voluntarism as well as social responsibility to help them easily hurdle the obstacles and subsequently achieve their goals and objectives in life.
Apolinario ‘Jun’Bagano, Jr., a Development Communication graduate of the State-owned Benguet State University (BSU), was the only representative of the Cordillera who was able to meet the top 30 shortlist requirements while the three other representatives from the region were unable to make it to the last stage of the screening process before the announcement of the TOSP.
“It came to me as a surprise. It was unexpected because of the stringent requirements and the participation of students from varius parts of the country. We just have to pray and wish that we will be able to make it in the final list but having landed in the top 30 shortlist is a significant achievement on my part,”Bagano stressed.
Bagano, is the son of Apolinario Bagano, Sr., one of the executive assistants of Gov. Nestor B. Fongwan, who traces his roots from Besao, Mountain Province and Bakun, Benguet and Rosario Bagtano, an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW), from Agoo, La Union. He is the second among the three Bagano siblings. His elder sister Joana Riza is a project officer of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Office (UNESC) while his younger brother Paul Joshua, is a second year hotel and restaurant management student of the King’s College of the Philippines (KCP) here.
During his college days, Jun Bagano was the editor-in-chief of the CA Pride, a departmental publication of the College of Agriculture, and served as the vice president of the Development Communication Society of BSU.
According to him, among the projects undertaken by their society when he was an officer was the conduct of free siminar-workshops on journalism in the different parts of the region and the conduct of storytelling caravans mostly in the different parts of Benguet.
“We want to share to our younger brothers and sisters the writing and other skills that we learned in our school as part of our social responsibility which is part of the services that we decided to render in the remote parts of the region,” he stated.
He said he came to know about the course Development Communication when he was informed by one of his high school teachers that he should take up the course because he had the writing skills and talent to be able to complete the course and become a successful professional in the future.
While he did not consider the motivation of his teacher, he was convinced to enrol the course instead of taking a technical course considering that BSU is just near their house and would save him a lot in terms of transportation expenses during his college days.
As of now, the young Bagano plans to take up law at the University of the Cordilleras (UC) and apply as a researcher to be able to help his parents defray the expenses of taking up his post-graduate course and considering that the work he will be doing is aligned to his chosen law course. By Dexter A. See
