Young journalists all over Davao Region finally converged to battle over the top spots in various journalism events for qualifying into the national levels.

            Last February 13-15, 2014, the Regional Schools Press Conference for elementary and high school journalists took place in Nabunturan, Compostela Valley. Over 50 students who were the winners for their respective divisions fought again for the Top 3 spot of their respective events who will be qualifying to the National Schools Press Conference this April 6-10, 2014 at Subic, Olongapo City.

            ?Campus Journalism and Transformative Leadership? was the theme for this year?s annual press conference.

             There were 9 events during the competition, with 7 of them being individual contest, and the other 2 are for teams. Individual News Writing, Photojournalism, Feature Writing, Editorial Writing, Editorial Cartooning, Sports Writing and the freshly launched event – the Science and Health Reporting.

            Of course, environmentalism was never out of the topic for the writing events. The feature writers were tasked to write the best feature about the question ?As a student, what can I do to help mitigate the effects of climate change?? The question was just perfect for the competition because they as the feature writers can convey their thoughts and messages beautifully to the readers, which will make the readers understand more about any subject matter.

            Choosing what to write between ?Water? and ?Malunggay? topics was the task of the Science and Health writers. I, being one of the contestants, chose to write about water since I am aware that the World Water Day is upcoming. (I?m still a newbie though. But I will keep on training how to write ☺)

            Team events Radio Broadcasting and Collaborative Publishing measured the gravity of teamwork and the intensity of the skills of each team member to create a performance/an output that will meet the standards of the competition.

            Talking about the experience, I was very thankful to be a contender for the competition as it would be my very first, and at the same time, last experience to join a journalism competition as a high school student.