proceedings, including the chief prosecutor. I wrote, “Inside the air-conditioned conference room, four people were watching history go by with their eyes closed.” Beltran said, “There! Finally! One of you has done something right!” I was shocked, it was so unexpected. It was the first time he’d praised anyone in class. “There is hope for this class,” he went on. “I was going to recom- mend that you all shift to social dancing. I love this girl, you should all be thanking her.” Afterward, he was my teacher in Journalism 103, and at the end of the semester he told each of us which beat we were qualified to cover. He’d say, “You should be on the Malacañang beat” and so on. When it was my turn he said, “You should be on the Education beat, it’s all you’re good for. News features.” He didn’t have a high regard for feature writing.
In Journalism 102 he just scared the living hell out of his students. But that was the turning point in my professional life.
Later on, when I was already a reporter at GMA 7, I discovered that he would tell his students, “That Jessica Soho? She was my student. But she was such a mouse, I never expected her to make it.”
The funny thing is, he became a host on the TV show Brigada Siete , where I was one of the producers. I told him, “Here is my
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