An Education

I have always wanted to be an editor. Call it the audacity of hope but back when I was in butterfly barrettes and a starts-out-crisp but ends-up-rumpled white button down and navy blue pleated skirt, I was already bounding along the halls of my elementary school in Tondo, Manila, clutching a binder of manuscripts that I would later learn was called “The Bible” or “The Book” in Devil Wears Prada-speak. Inside were print-outs (using dot matrix printers, no less) full of my scribbles and edits, with fastidious loops that meant delete and little arrow marks that underscored the words and phrases to be added into the copy.

Fast forward to college. I consider one of the smartest things I’ve ever done, in a catalogue of life that includes some very glaring mistakes, that I joined The LaSallian. The reason was obvious but the experience would far exceed even my wildest, puberty-induced dreams. It was more than I bargained for—I went in with a dream of becoming an editor but came away instead with an education that made by college experience far richer than a double degree ever could. In The LaSallian, I learned the value of discipline, the rigidity of deadlines and come hell or high water, we had a service to the reader and each and every story, down to the last comic strip, had to fulfill this greater audience.

I look back at the columns I’ve written for The LaSallian. One was simply titled “?” and another likened the annual General Elections of the Student Council to autumn, with auburn and yellow banners blanketing the normally green campus. Of course, I cannot omit “Red Pill, Blue Pill,” my anniversary column that compared, side by side the exigencies of my time with that of my mentor and fellow EIC alum, Bombit Largoza’s. When I read them now, I am hit by a wave of nostalgia and sheepishly, a bit of amazement. I was 20 years old but the sureness of the tone, the brash and whole-hearted belief for what I was writing and doing, and above all, the beating desire to make a difference, makes my older self a bit bashful and a bit proud. The LaSallian taught me to say stuff, to be brave and that when things got tough, there would always be people who would have your back.

The lessons I learned from my mentors (among them, Bombit Largoza, Dr. Clodualdo del Mundo, Dr. Vince Groyon III, just to name the most influential) still inform my work to this day. Just a few of them would be: always think of your audience first. Don’t create a story. Create characters and then the story will write itself. You are not your work but your work is you. And my favorite by far: never look down on your audience. They are exactly how you imagine them to be: if you believe them to be smart, capable of action and commentary-savvy, then they are and they will understand the work. And always, always be a critical thinker.

I never imagined that I would work for MEGA, the Philippines’ best fashion magazine, let alone run it. I was too busy making sure I would make the grade in my tough Comm Arts subjects while juggling QUATECH, to even be bothered to comb my hair. My uniform comprised tank tops, denim jeans and a pair of flaming Converse Chuck Taylors, and my bag of choice was a Jansport navy blue backpack that weighed a ton because of the dossier of books and photocopies inside. But it is these humble, non-fashionable roots that have made me immune to the trappings of an industry laced with glamour and, sometimes, poison. I have met too many people who have wished to enter the industry to achieve its perks, among them fame and freebies. But I only need look back at those memories of climbing the SPS building, two steps at a time, because I badly needed to meet my editorial team for lineup. Of how I had to sneak in catnaps in the middle of the day, in the tiny, maroon rectangle of a couch that was in the TLS office, after a grueling night replying to irate letter senders. To the outside world, the events and the fashion now may seem like 90% of the work I do, but the truth is, it is a tiny fraction, compared to the fulfillment that I get from seeing an issue come to life, or from the rush of working with a brilliant team and amazing artists both within and outside of the title I call MEGA. I have learned that making a publication, making a magazine, is the same as it ever was, in those years in TLS—the circumstances can be tough, and as anyone who has seen the #MakingMEGA documentary on Youtube will know, it is ridden with curveballs but a team who has heart will pull through.

De La Salle to me was a hothouse for growth in every sense—intellectual, social, whatnot, but The LaSallian was home. It taught me some of the most valuable lessons of life—that friendships can exist within work and make it thrive, and how the best mentors beat you up (only figuratively and no yelling) but only because they want you to be better than them. I consider myself lucky that I have always known what I wanted to do. However, I never had it all figured out. And it’s okay if you don’t either. What I have learned and continue to carry with me, now that I am approaching another chapter in my life, is that you have to find what it is you love to do. And never, ever let it go. Make it your light, imagine it as your compass, and it will take you farther than you ever imagined.

Meryll Yan was EIC of The LaSallian in AY 2004-2005 and while she didn’t comb her hair, she did get a 4.0 in QUATECH (now MANASCI and OPERMAN).