Christian context of triumph of good over evil, I’d like to think the intrinsic merit of the sentence in which that context was deployed, a sentence I had myself constructed, was itself crucially contributory. But again, it was an act of creation that could not have been without Sister Miriam. The award came in a little hexagonal medal with the word success chiseled thus—in capital letters—in its gold-plated face and painted shiny-blue. Sooner had it been pinned on me than I unpinned it and handed it, intending it as a gift, to Sister Miriam, who laid it on her palm and briefly regarded it, all the words to be said in her silent smile, before handing it back for me to keep—and, as it would happen, to misplace (I know I kept it but don’t remember where; as for the winning sentence, it is lost irretrievably from memory; my last bet was the St. James newspaper, The Chimes , which had published it, if I recall right, but no luck all the same). The St. James regime would emerge in reminiscence seven years later at Agence France-Presse, the French world-news supplier, where I began working as a journalist. Its Manila bureau chief, the legendary Teddy Benigno, began his workday by reviewing the newscast that had gone over the wires the previous day to all domestic subscribers—mostly news organizations and embassies—for errors in news writing and editing. He posted his critique on the bulletin board, typed on sheets of copy paper stapled end to end to make a long lolling tongue of prescripts and fines. Thrown into many further battles in life across the years, I had lost touch with Sister Miriam since St. James, but, as provi- dence would have it, to afford me the opportunity to redeem myself, this time to Sister Miriam herself, two angels from my class—Virgie Borromeo-Cabrera and Nila Barican-Tupaz—have
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