Benchmarking a Manileño

Another triumph was accomplished by the world when March 29, 1991 came. I was born. The name Jerome P. Lucas has been blazed and somehow blessed by someone above. From then on, the chapter of my life began.
But the book of my life wouldn’t be made without the caring hands of my parents. My mother Josefina Papa who bore me was born and raised in Manila while my father Romeo Lucas was in Caloocan. I have two sisters. Maria Cinderella Lucas, my older sister, is a current accountancy student at Polytechnic University of the Philippines and the other one is Maria Kris Lucas, 15 years old, a third-year high school student at Victorino Mapa High School.
I knew Manila for a long time. The noise of the vehicles, democratic protests of mass, historical landmarks and everything about Manila has already been attached to my personality. But my personality wouldn’t be completed unless there was an institution which would do so. Aside from my family, the very first institution which taught me the basic things that every person should learn was the Palawan Learning Center, a private kindergarten school at Altura, Sta. Mesa. After one year of hard work in knowing the principles of child, after I unleashed my shyness, after I chose to have a privilege that every child must have, I graduated with honor. I knew that that graduation couldn’t be an answer for my dreams and prayers but that success could just be my stepping stone of what I would have and become someday.
From Altura, Sta. Mesa, my parents decided to live separated from my grandparents’ vicinity. So, we lived at C. De Dios Street still in Sta. Mesa. And up to now, we are spending our lives there. The next school which continued my anticipation and eagerness to explore the real meaning of life and living was Pio del Pilar Elementary School which is located at Pureza. Another ending has come but another beginning has to start.
High school came. Everything about me got older, I grew taller, my mind knew wider, my feelings became stronger but still I should know that I was still weak and unable to live and stand alone in this world of uncertainty. I was enrolled by my mother to a school where she graduated from, Victorino Mapa High School. That school was not just an ordinary school. Aside from being one of the famous school in Manila, it was also considered as one of the most competitive and outstanding school in the Division of City Schools. And before I entered the said school, I said to myself that graduating on that school would be my greatest achievement if ever.
I have to take a test for a scholarship before I could call myself a Mapan. Then, I became a scholar, not financial but educational. My teachers were extraordinary, the subjects I have to take were advance and the classmates I have were really talented and intelligent.
Three years had passed yet I was still at the top section. Then, I realized that if I would strive hard why I wouldn’t give my best for me to be an honor student of my batch. From first to third year, I didn’t have honors because I thought that I could not attain glory and I was not for the honor, I was for the experience of having the best competitive classmates but I realized that I could be on the line of honors if I would give much more effort and sincerity not only on my classmates but also on my studies. My fourth year in high school was the hardest challenge I had encountered. You didn’t know whom you should trust and whom you should leave behind because the last year in the high school was the judgment year for who’s best and who’s not. I graduated as third honorable-mentioned student of batch 2007.
My high school years had been very fruitful for me. I gained so much freedom and I had brought myself out on my own shell. I had been class officer since frst year to fourth year. I had won in a duet-singing competition together with another classmate. I also held so many club in my school such as Mother Science Club, Math Club, Buklod ng Wika Club, UNESCO, Graft Watch Club, Boy Scout of the Philippines, YWCA, Philatelic Club and most of all was the Supreme Student Government. My classmates and I had won several choric interpretation in English, Filipino and even in Araling Panlipunan Month. Our research proposal in Research had won the 4th place in the investigatory project proposal contest and it was submitted to UP for other contests in regional level.
I became responsible in Journalism so I became the assistant editor-in-chief, the editor of editorial page and the circulation manager of the school’s official newspaper called Ang Gabay. I have joined the editorial writing contest in my second and third year and unfortunately, I didn’t get any place so in my fourth year, I chose not to join the contest anymore and goal was to serve and to give my best for the most important reading material of the school and not to have the glory of fame.
“I never interfere my schooling with my education.” It is a quote that marked in my mind and it became my guideline in my education process.
Like any other students, I took many entrance examinations like UP, Lyceum, De La Salle, PLM and PUP. I have passed all even the test of the best university of Manila, the PLM except UP. PLM has no tuition fee yet I didn’t accept its offer because my course was not sure if it would be assigned to me because the curriculum of PLM is General Education (GE) where students will be enrolled in a course where he or she excelled even though it was not his or her intended course. I chose PUP because it is near from my house and I am sure that I could get the course that I want because PUP is not under GE.
Communication Research was not my first choice. It was really the Broadcast Communication. I enrolled at ComRes because of what the interviewer has told me. She stressed that I would have a better career if I would take ComRes and so I took it.
Now, I am on my tertiary education and I can say that it is full of competition and it will end for a nice vocation.
“Yesterday, I was benchmarked by Manila. Tomorrow, I will benchmark Manila.”