The greatest adventure of our life so far (or the story of how we won an international award in Europe and the mad and crazy struggle of it all)

Part 2 by Raia Jennifer E. Dela Pena-Landicho

My feverish email relationship with Dr. Aralynn Mcmane began soon after her congratulatory email. First things first: How in hell are we going to get ourselves to Europe? Pardon my French but we didn’t even have passports when we found out about winning the Natasa Prize. I haven’t renewed my passport in like nine years and my husband has never even applied for one. I know, I know, it may sound strange to some people but we didn’t have passports and it never bothered us that we didn’t have any. We had no reason to travel abroad and ever since we started the business, Sinag that is, we couldn’t imagine leaving the press for more than a few days or spending hard earned money on foreign travel when we were working our butts off trying to make the new business a success.

So there. We had no passports! Waahhh!

Imagine winning an international award and not even having passports. It’s absurd. I should have applied for passports as soon as we submitted our entry to the WAN-IFRA but as I said, I never thought we would win.

Our beautiful Natasa Prize trophy from WAN-IFRA

Then of course, it turned out the passport was the least of our problems. We had to worry about schengen visas too. One of the most difficult visas to acquire, the schengen is right up there with the US visa (the holy grail of Filipino bourgeois travelers). Apparently, people prepare months ahead of their travel period for schengen visa applications. We had around a maximum of a month and a half to get everything ready: passports and visas all together. Needless to say, it seemed an impossible feat to achieve all that in such a short period of time. When we went to a travel agency near our office, the staff there almost laughed out loud when we told them our situation. We were told, condescendingly, that passports now take around a month to two months to process. There is now a tedious appointment system implemented by the DFA ever since biometric passports were invented and people trying to get an appointment with the DFA should wait around two to three weeks to get an appointment for an application. That doesn’t include the processing time after your appointment date of course. Sigh.

Early on, I felt that yes, we won, but no, we won’t get to receive our award. The win felt like a defeat.

And then suddenly, in the midst of my passport induced depression, a very good friend of mine, (actually one of the regular speakers for the Sinag JTS), told me he had a good friend who works for the DFA and that DFA employees had a courtesy pass privilege for passport processing every month. He told our story to this friend of his and she took pity on our plight and even though we were complete strangers, she gave us three of her courtesy passes for that month! How amazing is that? It suddenly felt like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. I was so overjoyed by the serendipity of it all – a friend who had a friend who had courtesy passes! I won’t name the person who helped us with our passports as I’m sure she values her privacy a lot but let me just say that good Samaritans still exist in this world and she is definitely one of them. Helping a stranger is a noble thing and she’s a real angel, I tell you.

So, we got our courtesy passes and our passports were scheduled to be released by September 12, just enough time for visa appointments. We were optimistic and enthusiastic! We are going to Vienna!

Then again, the ax fell.

The Austrian Embassy said that it takes two weeks to get an appointment for an interview and then you have to wait another three weeks to get results, which means we should get our visas around two weeks AFTER the awarding ceremonies. So near, and yet so far I tell myself...TO BE CONTINUED

House Resolution No. 1863: Congratulating and Commending Sinag Publishing and Printing Services

We received this in the email today and were so happy to have gotten recognition from the Youth Representative in our Congress! Thank you to the kabataan Partylist and to Congressman Raymond "Mong" Palatino for this House Resolution on Sinag Printing. This is indeed a great honor! Below is the text in full of the said House Resolution:

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Quezon City, Metro Manila FIFTEENTH CONGRESS Second Regular Session House Resolution No. 1863 Introduced by Kabataan Party-List Rep. Raymond V. Palatino

A RESOLUTION CONGRATULATING AND COMMENDING SINAG PUBLISHING AND PRINTING SERVICES AND ITS PROPRIETORS RUEL LANDICHO AND RAIA JENNIFER DELA PERA-LANDICHO FOR WINNING THE TOP PRIZE IN THE NATAZA PRIZE CATEGORY OF THE WORLD YOUNG READER AWARDS BY THE WORLD ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS AND NEWS PUBLISHERS

WHEREAS, it is State policy, in accordance to Republic Act No. 7079 or the Campus Journalism Act of 1991, to "promote the development and growth of campus journalism as a means of strengthening ethical values, encouraging critical and creative thinking, and developing moral character and personal discipline of the Filipino youth." In this vein, it is only fitting for the State to recognize various efforts aimed at improving the journalistic skills of young Filipinos and support programs and activities that promote at uphold the freedom of the press at the campus level; 

  WHEREAS, Sinag Publishing and Printing Services, a small printing press in Calamba City, Laguna owned by Ruel Landicho and Raia Dela Pena-Landicho, regularly offers free seminars, lectures and workshops on journalism to students of public and private institutions in Laguna through its flagship social responsibility program, the Sinag Journalism Training Seminars. First launched in October 2008, these events offer free lectures and workshops on journalism topics such as editorial and news writing; 

  WHEREAS, Sinag Publishing and Printing Services recently won the top prize in the Nataza Prize category of the World Young Reader Awards (WYRA). The Nataza Prize for newspaper printing plants is an award for projects by newspaper printing plants that effectively teach the young about newspapers and journalism. The WYRA is organized by the Europe-based World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, a global organization of more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries; 

  WHEREAS, according to the WAN-IFRA jury which judged the awards in Brazil, "this printing plant's journalism seminar activity is clearly a fitting tribute to the person after whom this category is named as the commitment is clear to assuring that the youth learn about the importance and fragility of a free press and about how to do good journalism." The Nataza Prize is named after Nataza Vuckovic Lesendric, a Serbian who founded and ran a distribution system and then a printing plant for the independent press under the regime of Slobodian Milosevic; 

WHEREAS, the Laguna based husband-and-wife team of small entrepreneurs received the international award last October 12 in Vienna, Austria during the occasion of the 63` d World Newspaper Congress and the 18 th World Editors Forum at the Reed Exhibitions Wien; 

  WHEREAS, Sinag Publishing and Printing Services, in a statement, said that the international recognition bestowed upon them "proves that you don't have to be a big company to do a successful social responsibility program, and that even small entrepreneurs can give back to one's community in a big way"; 

  WHEREAS, despite the grim picture of press freedom in the country, with the Philippines being named by international bodies as the "most dangerous place for journalists in the world" due to rising and unsolved media killings, the commitment of Sinag Publishing and Printing Services to train and encourage young Filipinos, students and budding journalists to become skillful and ethical journalists and defenders of press freedom is a beacon of light in the media gloom and a show of trust for the Filipino youth that they can effect genuine change in our nation; 

  NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, AS IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, to congratulate and commend Sinag Publishing and Printing Services and its proprietors Ruel Landicho and Raia Jennifer Dela Pena-Landicho for winning the top prize in the Nataza Prize Category of the World Young Reader Awards by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. 

  Adopted, HON. RAYMOND V. PALATINO Representative, Kabataan Party-list

The greatest adventure of our life so far (or the story of how we won an international award in Europe and the mad and crazy struggle of it all)

by Raia Jennifer Dela Pena-Landicho

Part 1:

Who would have thought that in a matter of months, our life would change so drastically and go upside down like some roller coaster ride? That is exactly how I feel about us winning the Natasa Prize in the World Young Reader Prize given by the WAN-IFRA (World Organization of Newspapers and Publishers).

Last June, we received an email from Ms. Aralynn Mcmane. She introduced herself as an executive director of a department in the World Organization of Newspapers and Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and invited us to join an annual competition given by their organization. This year, she said, there is a special category called the Natasa Prize to be given to newspaper printing plants that advocate teaching journalism to the youth.

Of course, Sinag printing has become well known for its social responsibility program, the Sinag Journalism Training Seminars, and our Sinag JTS was a perfect fit for the Natasa Prize category. And yet, who’d have thought there was a competition for such an endeavor?

My husband, the perennial skeptic, thought it was another email phishing scam. Keeping that warning in mind, we did our research first before answering Ms. Mcmane’s email. Of course, all our research told us that this was, in fact, a big and prestigious international organization we were dealing with and we immediately went to work creating the power point presentation that was to be our entry for the Natasa Prize.

We submitted our program entry a few days before June 30, WAN-IFRA’s deadline for the competition. We then got an acknowledgement from Mcmane and her staff and were told that we’d find out the result of the competition by late August. That was that. I wrote a short blog about joining the contest, I felt then that it was already such a privilege to have been invited to join the competitions but never thought about winning it. I remember daydreaming about winning and imagining going to Vienna but these were daydreams and I soon forgot about the Natasa Prize as we did work on various things, including the 3^rd Sinag JTS last July.

Around the third week of August we started waiting for any kind of email announcement from WAN-IFRA and when no emails came, we assumed that somebody else won and forgot about it since it was a busy month for us at the press.

Then one morning, I was still upstairs when I heard the girls (our assistants that is) screaming downstairs. My first thought was perhaps an ax murderer got into the office but since the screams sounded happy enough, I thought maybe something else. As if on cue, of course, they burst into our room and showed me a paper – apparently Aralynn Mcmane’s personal congratulatory email. WE WON TOP PRIZE for the Natasa Award!!!

Oh! that day was such a dream. Probably the happiest day of my life – barring the day I gave birth to my son, my wedding day, and the day I found out about passing the UPCAT, that is. J It didn’t really sink in at first. I read the words but I didn’t really feel it was real when we first found out. I remember taking a shower that morning and looking at my reflection in the mirror, I was wearing a silly and slightly stupid looking smile, it’s the kind of smile dumbfounded people must wear all the time. :) TO BE CONTINUED...