I have come full circle with my very first job.

The wall beside my bed is littered with posters from a bygone era. The red on black of the "No Exit" production by the college-based theater laboratory was a leftover from a semester spent foraging the stacks for Camus, when my favorite couple was Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Above it is a collage of small movie posters a friend gave to me on my birthday: Manhattan splayed beside Dances With Wolves, the sensuous red lips of the girl from L'amant contrasting with the splash of water by the freed whale. Three red X's announced the premiere of several experimental short films done over that summer. If you listen attentively to the closing credits of one of them, about a teacher who gets lost on her way to class, you would be able to hear my voice ranting about the absolute uselessness of rote memorization as a teaching tool. A black and white rendition of a guy in a Bjork-esque pose, a swan dangling from his languid neck, guiltily purchased from a sidewalk vendor at the height of severe infatuation. Still another beckons me to go to France, with a note beneath that reminded me of daisy chains for my foreign language class: "Elle m'aime, un peu, beaucoup, passionement, a la folie, pas du tout..."

During the times when I found it difficult to write, I plastered the whole wall with paper. There I would chart plots and character connections, or conjugations of verbs as irregular and difficult as a love object's fluctuating affection. Arguments and staccato lines of poetry screamed from the wall in huge handwriting, done with markers and sometimes even crayons. I posted class requirements and deadlines beside the light switch as reminders for myself. I usually took them down after everything's been done and crossed off. But one of the last posts remained there, two years after I needed them.

My schedule for the third week of March 2000 had me completely occupied. The last power point presentation for my STS class was due on Mon, 20 Mar. For Friday, 24 Mar, an exam on Marx and feminism for my critical theory class (under Mr Reeves. He has all the need for speed), final papers on deconstruction and popular culture, and the novel as a talking cure for former activists who are presumably guilty for selling out.

Wednesday, 22 March. I got my lunch money by serving as a proctor for the Comm II departmental exams. Revisions for essay class were due. And after that, I was to head for the Starbucks branch in Tomas Morato, to meet with the guy who would eventually be my headwriter and very first boss. I wasn't familiar with the landscape of the Timog-Morato area then. I was prone to getting lost, so I had directions written down for me. Directions allow you to have concrete objectives. Take the Cubao Arayat jeep. When you reach the scouts memorial, turn left on the first street. Get off the jeep and haul your carcass into the coffee shop.

When I finally got there and sat across the little table from him, it was just like meeting up with a friend for coffee. He explained to me how the show worked, that I had to tag along with the researchers so I could ask questions I would need to get the whole story. I learned about ENGs and soundbites and how many commercials are there to fill the gap. So would I like to do it?

I met the whole production later that same night. It was funny because I never thought of it as a job interview, because it didn't fit into my concept of a job interview. I didn't even have a resume with me. Then suddenly there was this guy who was basically offering me a job based on a diagnostic exam, a sample work and an interview I did for a writing workshop. It wasn't until the workshop was over when I finally met him. It would be much much later I would learn why he hired me. He thought that I had potential, that I could write. At a time that I wasn't even convinced of what I could do, his trust and generosity were the nicest things anyone ever said to me in my life.

There was so much to learn in those first few months. My first research trip was about a three-year-old girl who was found raped and murdered. The researchers I was with were also new guys fresh out of college, and none of us was ready for the rawness of the misery and poverty so many people out there had to live with. Every new case presented a challenge, and we would constantly be in a tug-of-war between responsibility and creative freedom. We were working with real people, with their own lives caught on video. Real life tended to be boring, and how to present an interesting drama vis-a-vis the reality lay heavily on our shoulders. How much creativity were we really allowed? How much freedom can we allow ourselves to have?

I would spend two years with this group. One of the writers remarked that the show really was a training ground for so many of us. The show marked a lot of firsts for all of us. It was Abi's first time to have a regular show on television. Abet went from segment producer - researcher to writing. Norj shifted to production after doing news and public affairs. Eboy and Omar first got sent to slums, and faced a hotel room full of Abu Sayyaf when the Mindanao hostage crisis first broke out. I would get dragged up mountains and caves, meet rapists and supernatural beings, real life heroes. We learned how to deal with people, get accused for a lot of things, defend ourselves for all the right and wrong reasons. We adjusted to network demands, wrote advertising copies. We survived several reformats and tried to do the right thing, but economic forces prevailed.


We first had a taste of it six months ago, on the same night of 9/11. At the time, our own personal hell seemed inconsequential compared to what other people were suffering with. When we were informed that the show had reached its last stop, that we would just finish the summer season, somehow we knew that it was coming. We should have been more prepared to over the Kubler-Ross cycle all over again, but this was a different loss.

The creative team of writers and researchers was one happy bunch. We went about our jobs with eagerness to do our best, and our headwriter pulled all stops so we could be assured that there were no rifts or any such business. The show rated well, and as far as we were concerned, we were all doing okay. But perhaps we had too much fun, perhaps we had been too insulated from the real world of network economics. Perhaps we didn't consider that the show wouldn't be around forever.

The announcement was made. There would be other shows. But nothing would replace the sort of camaraderie and team spirit we all shared. We would move on and work with different people, and it would never be the same.


I also found it strange how we spend our lives going around in circles. I joined the show 22 March 2000 and the formal announcement came 22 March 2002. I would write the last script slated for airing, Kasangga Episode # 117. I began writing for Click, which would now be my regular show, with Episode # 117. The end is the beginning is the end.

I will have to take down those posters soon. I have somehow outgrown their use, and for some reason I couldn't bring myself to either tear the wall down or replace the posters. I have come full circle.