#prsp

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It was the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Every moment had led up to this.

I will never forget the loud pounding of my heart inside my chest as I climbed the stage, in front of everyone’s eyes in the theater, the cold air conditioning adding to the chills I was experiencing then. My knees stood sturdy despite of it all. I graced a smile to hide my tension. The nervousness was unwanted but it was normal. I was about to speak in front of everyone, after all. And to top that, I had to be the first among our team to talk – to introduce our campaign and to set the atmosphere that we aimed to place. You can imagine the pressure.

I opened my mouth and tried to do what probably I do best.

And the rest is history.

As blessed as I was in entering the University of the Philippines and in qualifying for the degree program of Organizational Communication, I never expected to be showered with even more opportunities and blessings. It seemed as if the blessings never stopped. My cup was definitely overflowing.

The Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) held a competition for college students who are interested in the field of public relations. I have already mentioned in a previous blog post that the task-at-hand was to come up with a public relations plan for PRSP using both traditional and digital media platforms with a PHP 2,000,000 budget. Our team (Abee, Paul, Jomar, and I) was fortunate enough to be one of the seven teams that qualified in the finals out of the 29 schools that joined the competition.

Our team woke early for that fateful day – because of the nerves or excitement, I couldn’t be quite sure. For me, it was definitely a mixture of both. We came at the venue early enough to see the stage director and his team working in building the stage. And truly, the early bird gets the worm since we were given extra time for our dry run.

We saw other contestants came pouring in the theater but we didn’t have that much of a chance to interact with each other because we were held in our individual holding rooms. Our excellent coach (hands down), Prof. Barry Barrientos, was called to draw lots regarding the order of presentation. We prayed neither for the first nor the last, and thankfully, we placed 5th – just right in between.

The good thing about our team was that while we were in our holding rooms, we were relaxed. It was quite amusing that we even had the guts to take naps and eat our heart out with McDo burgers, courtesy of Abee’s parents. We did practice once or twice but most of the time, we were simply chatting and taking photos of ourselves. Maybe, it was our coping mechanism for the intense pressure and nervousness that lingered. For what it’s worth, it really did me good.

To make the event more meaningful (and adding more to the pressure, I might add), my whole family – my mom, dad, sis and bro – arrived at the venue early. I wasn’t expecting them to come; they never had the chance to watch me compete before. My heart was full of joy. I really felt their support. Since then, nothing else mattered than to give my best, not for everyone else or even myself, but for them and for the Lord. 

OrCom batch 2015 also came with their shouts of support to our team. My three best friends – Jenny, Cherianne, and Camille – came as well. Their hugs were the best. They never let me doubt myself even for a second. I almost teared up, to be honest.

The ushers who were absolutely charming and helpful, finally called us to proceed to the second holding room – indicating that we’re already next up to perform. Abee led us to a heartfelt prayer before we settled in once more. Sir Barry was teaching us some techniques to dispel the tension, and it did help.

And the next minute, we’re on the stage, speaking our hearts out, giving our very best.

The sleepless nights, the countless rechecking of the plan, the sabaw moments, the Jollibee takeouts, the inside jokes, the highs and the lows – all led to that moment.

Abee and Paul were fantastic and brilliant with their spiels. I was smiling the whole time they were speaking their lines and I knew then that I had to give my best, too. Though I couldn’t see Jomar, I knew that he was under great pressure as well, but knowing him, he could probably bullsh*t (as he would say) his way through it and ease his tension. It’s his thing. 

Applause echoed throughout the whole of the theater as we finally came down to close. It was finally done. Abee, Paul, and I moved closer to each other to, seeking support as we face head on the question and answer portion of the presentation.

The judges were the institutions of public relations in the Philippines and we couldn’t afford to answer wrongly or to sound obnoxious – Mr. Bong Osorio, APR; Mr. Charlie A Agatep, APR; Mr. Jones T. Campos, APR; Mr. Ronald Jabal and Mr. Joee Guilas.

Blessings continue to overflow when we answered promptly and correctly. A huge chunk of the success of the Q&A portion, we owe to our coach who constantly grilled us with his tough questions and guided us to the right answers. Our team’s dynamics in the stage when we answered questions was unbelievably synchronized. We all helped each other out. We could also feel the support of UP Manila when they would clap loudly after we successfully answer every question thrown to us.

Thankfully, our feedback was positive. One of the judges even said that out of all the presenters that day, we were the best. I was smiling the whole time.

The smile didn’t leave my face even as we entered our holding rooms once more. Prof. Barry expressed that we did absolutely great which made my grin even wider. We group-hugged our feelings and it was good.

We joined my batchmates in the audience to watch the remaining groups. But no matter how I tried to focus, I couldn’t stay still with the buzzing feeling in my veins. It was pure euphoria. The groups we watched did OK and soon after, the judges were already calculating the scores for the winners. 

Before the awarding, special awards like Best Male and Female Speaker were given. And guess what? I won the Best Female Speaker! Our team and our batchmates around me screamed in glee, and it just kind of happened, and the next thing I knew, I was in the stage receiving my award, looking at my family who threw their thumbs-up at me. It was glorious.

We waited in anticipation.

And then the moment came.

Ateneo de Manila was called first, receiving the third place. De La Salle University – Dasmariñas came in second.

University of the Philippines Manila was called as the champion.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

We won. We came out on top. We brought home the bacon.

The whole theater roared and applauded with our team. Showers of congratulations filled my ears, hands were thrown at us to shake with, and we were bombarded with genuine smiles. It was the best feeling. It was golden. 

We climbed the stage once more, the feeling so familiar yet so different at the same time. The nervousness was definitely gone, only joy and gratefulness. The gold medals hanging in our necks clinked as we took time to smile in front of the cameras.

We received a whopping score of 95% and there was actually a huge gap between us and the second placer, which received 85%. We also set history by bagging UP Manila’s first win the competition and by being the smallest-numbered team to come out as champion.

Until now, whenever I would see the medals displayed in our living room, I would get the same euphoric feeling I felt that day.  

It was an experience that I will remember forever. 

____________

Outtakes:

After being postponed for weeks because of flooding and heavy rain, the PRSP Grand Prix finally happened last October 12 at Colegio de San Juan de Letran. Seven teams from five schools competed to impress PR professionals with their winning campaigns. Among these schools are Adamson University, Ateneo de Manila University, Angelicum College, De La Salle University Dasmariñas, and our very own University of the Philippines Manila.

Klout-ing About

Before the competition, a speaker told us about Klout, an online website which measures one's online influence. The Klout score is measured not only by how many followers one has, but also by the quality of comments and conversations that your posts receives.

Klout may be used on a variety of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. She also listed the top ten Filipino celebrities with the highest Klout scores. Anne Curtis ruled the roost with a whopping 95.

She also explained that Klout was used for the competition to see how effective the finalists campaigns are.

Majors in Play

While watching the pitches, I finally realized how insanely lucky we were that our PR (OrCom 105) professor decided to push us way past our limits. We were able to see how the campaigns could be better improved (and some of our suggestions were mentioned by the judges) through what we'd learned from our 105 class.

The "Tuhog" Principle

The tuhog principle basically states that all things about a campaign must be focused and connected. Lacking focus may cause a campaign to seem all over the place and being unable to make connections may cause loopholes. These terms were used repetitively not only by us, but the judges as well.

Knowing Your Audience

I remember one of the greatest mistakes we made in our midterm campaign- we had a secondary audience that wasn't derived from our survey and had no specific strategy. This happened to one of the finalists. In any campaign, research is not to be taken lightly.

#GoForPro winning the Grand Prix was not only a victory for the OrCom Program, but also a testament to how well-rounded OrCom students can be.

I’ve rambled too much. Ciao for now. X