10/8/2018 What a Palanca Means to This Doctor – Ronibats.

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WHAT A PALANCA MEANS TO

THIS DOCTOR
By Ron Baticulon / In Thoughts and Re ections / 7 October 2018 / 15 Min read /
9 comments

Every year, when the winners of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for
Literature are announced, you always read about rst-time awardees who
succeed on their rst attempt, and in a major category at that. This isn’t one
of those stories.

By the time September began, I had already developed an absurd if not

juvenile aversion to the mailroom. In August, I imposed a rule that I would
check my designated metal box at most once a week, preferably on a busy
day, when I had several items in my schedule, my mind cluttered with more
important things to do. That way, I would not subject myself to the cycle of
breathless anticipation, eventual disappointment, unhealthy sourgraping,
and lingering self-doubt, any more than was necessary.

Deliverance could not come soon enough. It had been a week since Gabby
Lee posted a photo of her husband’s congratulatory letter and cream
envelope on Instagram (Short story, di erent category, I’m good). A day
earlier, Je Canoy winning rst prize for his narrative on the Marawi crisis
made the rounds on social media (Same category, that leaves two more
empty slots, I’m still good). No searching on Google. No clicking on Twitter
hashtags. Rules kept the pang of failure transient and at a minimum, almost
negligible in the grand scheme of things.

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That morning though, I needed to check my electricity bill. It would usually

arrive on the rst week of the month and I did not want to pay penalty
charges out of petty dread. So I took the elevator down, and with hesitant
steps, made my way to the mailroom as a stowaway would walk the plank in
pirate movies. Every time my Beach Walk slippers hit the marble ooring,
they made a slapping sound that repeatedly bounced o the walls lined by
metal boxes, a reverberation that would climax either with mental applause
or a taunting gong, depending on what was in my mailbox. Or not in it.

I bent forward and peeped into the aperture of 24R, a sliver of yellow light
revealing the mailbox’s contents. If this were an indie movie, the camera’s
POV would reverse at this point, to show my furrowed brows and the dilation
of my pupils as they scrutinized what’s inside. Silence, except for my heart’s
thumping, every pulsation forcing itself out of my eardrums, only to be
pulled back and shoved to the back of my throat. There’s the expected utility
bill. A small piece of paper, face down, resting on top of it, too. Maybe a notice
from the post o ce? Which courier did the foundation use? I would not
know, and I could not was not allowed to Google. I inserted my key and
ipped the metal cover up.

The piece of paper was a yer for another apartment unit on sale.
Unsolicited. Unwanted. Unapologetic. What a waste of extra heartbeats.

It was probably time to accept that I had lost for the third consecutive year,
fth year in total since 2007. That brings the tally of casualties to two Filipino
short stories, two English essays, and an English short story for children. I
surmised I would read about the rest of the winners in a press release due
out soon, and past catharsis, I would get back to my daily routine that by then
could be summarized using three bullet points: drive through Manila tra c,
give a lecture or do patient rounds, and wash the dirty dishes.

I shed out the Meralco billing statement, made a blind sweep with my
ngers to make sure the mailbox was truly empty, and walked briskly to the
elevator, pocketing the envelope without bothering to open it.
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”
Ano nga ba ang kailangan para magkaroon ng kwenta ang isinusulat ng
isang manunulat? Ano nga ba ang batayan para masabi ng mga taong “Oo
nga, writer ka”?
 
Kung ang mga isinusulat ko ay walang teenage angst o kahit anong galit
sa mundo, writer ba ako? Kung wala kang makitang pagkakaiba sa
writing style ko at ng isang Grade 6 pupil, writer ba ako? Kung ang mga
sanaysay ko ay hindi pang-Palanca, writer ba ako? Kung ako lang ang
taong nakakatintindi ng mga gawa ko, writer ba ako? Kung mas gusto
kong gamitin ang “nakakapraning” at “nakakaburaot” kesa
“nakapapraning” at “nakabuburaot,” writer ba ako? Kung lahat ng
mambabasa ay hindi nakakarating sa huling letra ng huling salita ng
huling pangungusap ng huling talata ng artikulo ko, writer ba ako?
 
Writer (Daw) Ako, Peyups.com, 30 June 2002 

I wrote these paragraphs in 2002, the earliest and only reference to the
Palanca awards I could nd in my writings. I was 18 and on my second year
of pre-med in the University of the Philippines. Back then, my greatest
literary achievements were two awards in high school: rst place in an essay
writing competition during a student congress in Baguio and 5th place for
newswriting at the National Schools Press Conference held in Tacloban. To
have mentioned the Palancas and to have stated the question in the negative,
that only meant I had been thinking about it, that I dreamed of winning it, but
I didn’t know how to, or even if I could. That was typical teenager me writing.

It was around that time when I quit being a probationary news

correspondent of the Manila Collegian. I left my resignation letter addressed
to the editor-in-chief LJ at the guardhouse of the old NEDA building, where
the student publication held o ce. The o ce was locked that afternoon and
probies didn’t have keys. It was an unprecedented decision. I am sorry—I
wrote—I am not one to quit, but the schedule has become hectic for an
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aspiring doctor who has to maintain his scholarships. I have always been an
all-or-none person; I don’t want to be a mediocre sta writer only because I
have to prioritize academics all the time.

LJ wrote back, and with kind words expressed his regret because I was only
one news article short of making it to the Manila Kulé sta box, of attending
meetings and NatSits (i.e., national situation discussions) sans the probie
label—how I should have spoken to him directly about wanting to shift from
newswriting to feature writing before writing my letter—but he respected my
decision and many years later he would tell me that he saw no point in trying
to convince me to retract. Alam mo, ikaw lang ang binigyan ko ng 10/10 sa
interview kasi napabilib mo ako sa mga sagot mo.

Summer of 2002 was when I started to miss writing beyond what was
required in medical school. On my aunt’s desktop PC, I typed two personal
essays. Roughly one month apart, I submitted them to Peyups.com, the
online community of the University of the Philippines that founders Karl and
Mimi started in 1999. Anyone who felt an a liation to UP, no matter how
tenuous, frequented Peyups at the height of its popularity for two reasons.
First, its public forums, a virtual microcosm of the UP system that served as
an online tambayan where people could discuss any topic you could think of,
from the profound to the mundane, rated G to R-18. And second, the daily
dose of artiks (short for articles), which were essays, typically 500 to 1000
words, contributed by users and refereed by webmasters and pro bono
editors, before the chosen ones ended up on the website’s homepage and
were subsequently archived in neat categories.

At a little under 600 words, Writer (Daw) Ako! was my rst essay posted
online for public consumption. The artiks were open to comments and often
the most popular or most controversial posts generated threads that would
rival those in the forums. I don’t remember trolls being an issue then. Peyups
readers did criticize, but more often than not, the online community was
generous with praise. From 2002 to 2006, I would contribute 38 essays and

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stories to Peyups, most of them under my semi-monthly column that I called

Lightning Crashes. When Peyups died down, I migrated my articles and
continued to write in my personal blog. My audience followed and grew in
number.

Fast forward to 16 years later, faced with the prospect of another Palanca
loss, I would go back to my original question:

Writer na nga ba ako?

I thought I would win in 2016. I had just come back from a year of fellowship
training in Melbourne and did not yet have the necessary licenses and
documents to start my private practice. I had plenty of idle time. A few days
before my birthday, I sat down, opened long-dormant drafts in my computer,
and wrote about how I learned to ride a bike at the age of 30, the narrative
interspersed with one of my most di cult operations as a neurosurgery
resident.

It was my rst attempt at creating a long-form essay, at least ve times longer

than my usual blog post. I retrieved my ring-bound manuscript compilation
and notes from the 2007 UST National Writers Workshop, where I was a
fellow for maikling kuwento, and gleaned all useful feedback from co-fellows
and panelists so I could play to my strengths. I read essays from previous
winners that I could nd online. The ferocity with which I wrote was
delightfully surprising, as if I had inadvertently opened a cupboard stacked
with locked-up paragraphs and all the words just spilled forth. Still, it wasn’t
enough. I wrote about failure and, well, I lost.

Luckily though, the loss was redeemed by an email I received a week after
the Palanca winners were announced. Gabby Lee wrote to say that the same
essay had been selected for inclusion in Likhaan, the peer-reviewed literary
journal published annually by UP Institute of Creative Writing. It would
appear in an anthology edited by J. Neil Garcia and I would receive a hard
copy of the book in addition to a substantial cash prize. It was the rst time I

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would see my name next to luminaries in Philippine literature. Parang

nanalo na rin ako sa Palanca. I knew that essay was worth something;
writer’s gut feel, if there’s such a thing.

I tweaked my essay (In the original entry, there was a typo on the rst
sentence!) to its nal form that now appears in Likhaan 10 (University of the
Philippines Press, 2016), and decided to submit the revised version to the
2017 Palanca awards. Long story short, I lost again.

Gutted, that was when I asked myself, like any other Filipino writer must
have after a Palanca losing streak: why was I looking for validation in a
contest decided on by three people? I owned a blog known to a good number
of medical students and doctors all over the country, even to OFWs with an
insatiable need for online Filipino stories. My essays would generate
Facebook shares and likes, Twitter faves and retweets, and mostly positive
comments. A handful became viral or had been re-posted in Rappler and
Inquirer. Just before I turned 30, I had an essay published in YoungBlood,
another tick on my literary bucket list. I contributed regularly to a magazine
for health professionals. Were these not enough?

The simple answer was that I still wanted to win, an adolescent yearning that
time could not temper, only made more intense as the object became more
elusive. After Manila Collegian, I was not allowed to quit again. That’s a rule.

For the 2018 competition, I submitted my essay on the deadline. I had just
returned from an overseas trip the day before and had to work overnight to
nalize my entry, in a ca eine-fueled dash trying to make sense of the
arrows and scribbles on the draft pages I brought to Thailand and back. I
thought I had until 12 midnight to make changes, till I had the sense to check
the online press release and, to my horror, saw that I could only submit until
5 in the afternoon. I had a lunchtime meeting in UP Manila; I had no choice
but to go to the Palanca foundation’s Makati o ce in the morning.

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“Maiiyak ba ako kapag binasa ko ito?” she said as she checked the long
brown envelope’s contents. She was alluding to the title.

“Ah, baka po. Sana.”

Behind her, a wall shelf that stretched from end to end, lled with hardbound
compilations of previous winners, arranged by year and category. I
restrained myself from standing up and pulling one or two tomes to browse
on my lap while I waited. When did Gregorio Brillantes win for Faith, Love,
Time and Dr. Lazaro? Luis Gatmaitan for Sandosenang Sapatos?

She handed the acknowledgement slip, which by now had acquired a certain
familiarity. I said thank you and left. Before hailing a taxi, I looked at the
piece of paper in my hand and found out her name was Leslie.

Earlier in January, Gerry Los Baños, the deputy director of the University of
the Philippines Press sent an email informing me that the manuscript I
submitted in March 2017 had been accepted for publication. It was a
collection of my essays on medical school and neurosurgical training. Two
other publishers had previously said no, but I persisted. I only had the
courage to submit to UP Press after they accepted my essay in Likhaan.

“Do not pre-judge (your work), that is the lesson,” UP Press director J. Neil
Garcia said to me on the day I went to UP Diliman to discuss my upcoming
book.

It was an excerpt from my revised manuscript that I submitted to this year’s

Palancas. If this essay lost, I would try again in 2019, no question. I had
already made up my mind that I would keep joining the contest year after
year, until I became good enough to win, or lucky enough, whichever came
rst. A very thin line separated enduringly resolute from foolishly stubborn. I
reckoned that if I read enough books by the right authors and kept trying to
improve my work each time I failed, that should swing the pendulum toward
the former. By now, I had nished Butch Dalisay’s The Knowing Is in the

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Writing and Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo’s creative non- ction manual; I

wondered what else I needed in my armamentarium.

In the days following news of Je Canoy’s win, I kept myself busy with my
classes in UP College of Medicine and my patients in Philippine General
Hospital.

“Good morning, may I speak with Mr. Ronnie Baticulon?”

It was a woman’s voice, an unknown number on the display. I was on my

way out to do a morning run, not intending to bring my mobile phone. Not a
lot of people addressed me Mr. instead of Dr.

“Yes?”

“Sir, sa Palanca awards po ito.”

Palanca?

 Is this an auditory hallucination?

 HUY PALANCA DAW!

“Ah bakit po?”

“Sorry Sir, ngayon lang po kasi kami na-inform ng LBC na hindi daw po
nakarating sa inyo ‘yung letter and invitation. House closed daw po.”

“Ha? Bakit? Nanalo ba ako?”

“Yes Sir, second prize… Wait lang po ha…”

The crisp sound of paper being shu ed at the other end of the line.

“…English essay, Some Days You Can’t Save Them All.”

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A full week after all the other winners got their congratulatory letters, that
was when and how I found out: I won my rst Palanca. What a waste of self-
induced misery for several days. When I hung up, I received a Viber message
containing the package’s tracking label so I could gure out how to get my
invitation. The sender was the same person I was talking to over the phone,
and her name was Leslie. Yes, same lovely, lucky Leslie.

Needless to say, I waited a long time for this. I am brimming with gratitude,
but what exactly does a Palanca mean to this neurosurgeon?

Indeed, I got the validation I wanted, having successfully transitioned from

med student/doctor blogger to Palanca-winning essayist. An extra line in my
curriculum vitae, an extra sentence for the person tasked to introduce me
before speaking engagements in medical conferences. But this is, by no
means, an end. Tomorrow, in all likelihood, I would still need to drive
through Manila tra c, do patient rounds and/or give a lecture, and wash the
dirty dishes. But now I have a Palanca certi cate on my desk—a gentle nudge
forward, an encouraging tap on the shoulder for me to keep writing despite
the demands of medicine and the academe.

The best part is realizing that at this point in my literary career, to quote
Butch Dalisay, the writing would now matter more than the winning.
Perhaps it always did. Perhaps that was why I was willing to subject myself
to as many failures as necessary in order to win. Perhaps somewhere, there’s
a teenager dreaming of a Palanca who would get to read this essay and do the
same thing.

I will continue to write the stories I can, because the stories of our people
need to be told. And what I learned in almost two decades of writing is that
sometimes, that’s the only way for their voices to be heard, especially now
when truth is drowned in noise and it has become needlessly di cult to
listen. This doctor believes, that is how writers create happy endings.

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Full list of winners in the 2018 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for
Literature here. 

    

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

RON BATICULON

Ronibats is a pediatric neurosurgeon, teacher, and writer. In 2018, he

won a Palanca award for the title essay of his upcoming book, "Some
Days You Can't Save Them All" (UP Press, 2019). You can follow him on
Twitter @ronibats.

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9 COMMENTS

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JOSE DALISAY
7 October 2018 at 9:03 am

Very nicely put. My warmest congratulations–sorry I missed you at the

Awards Night, but I hope you can drop by my Quezon Hall o ce before I
retire in mid-January. (I’ll also be speaking at UP Manila’s anniversary event
on October 22.) Mabuhay! Ars longa, vita brevis

Reply

A
7 October 2018 at 9:18 am

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Ang galing nyo po!

“You are a story. You are not merely the possessor and teller of a number of
stories”-D. Allender

Reply

SAM
7 October 2018 at 10:00 am

Kainspire! Congrats sir! Anyway, where can we read the winning entries this
year po?

Reply

LEA
7 October 2018 at 2:42 pm

Dear Doc,
I am one of your students in Topnotch-Cambridge. We are currently on a
long cease re before our next exam weekend so I was honestly slacking o
when I read about your recent achievement.
First of all, congratulations on your Palanca!
Anyway, I am sending you this message to simply tell you that your victory
inspired me. I used to join writing contests in high school and actually
enjoyed writing a lot. However, I really wanted to be a doctor more than
anything so I did not think of writing as a profession. I also submitted a piece
for the Kabataan Essay category in 2007 as a last ‘gift’ to writing since I don’t
think I will ever do anything for the craft in the future. I lost and thought that
I should never look back.
From college to present, I met people who were not professional writers (i.e.
people who did not pursue a ‘related’ course) who won in the competition
and I felt that tinge of jealousy, wanting to try it again. But I kept giving
myself excuses that trying again has nothing to do with my goals; that it will
not make me a better physician. But after I read about your win, I felt strange

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like I was previously diagnosed with an end-stage disease only to be told that
they got it all wrong– I was inspired. I suddenly want to try again. I have no
ideas or plans on what to write but I just want to do it again.. but I’ll get this
Board exam done rst. Haha.
There are other things that you inspire me about (like I really would also like
to teach Biochem someday haha) but for now, I really would just like to thank
you for your grit and for inspiring me (and a lot of other people) in the
process. May God bless you po!
-Lea

Reply

MYRA R. OLIVER
7 October 2018 at 6:17 pm

Congrats Sir!

Reply

CECILIA MARAMBA-LAZARTE
7 October 2018 at 7:21 pm

Congratulations again! So proud of you Ronnie. Your writing is so genuine

and palpable. Can’t wait for your book. Godspeed!

Reply

JIGSZ NS
7 October 2018 at 9:51 pm

very inspiring.. congratulations.. keep writing … this reminds me not to stop

writing despite the busyness of everyday life. thanks.

Reply

JOAN ELIAS

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7 October 2018 at 10:20 pm

congratulations doctor bats,i havent read your award winning essay yet but
the title itself is very interesting,i would really nd time to read it.
as of this very moment while reading your post,i am at the peak of giving up
with my dreams,my medical career,im still reviewing for the two remaini g
days of our boards and problems from my family is enivetable,that i want to
give up already…iv been crying very hard and i just want to let go of all of my
dreams…but after reading your post iv changed my mind..you are right sir,we
can let go of our dreams without trying,we have to ght and be very
determined and patient…thank you for opening up my mind…congratulations
again sir…

Reply

JAMELA MALLARE
8 October 2018 at 12:18 am

Sobrang tuwa ko po ng nakita ko sa Facebook ang post nyo tungkol sa

Palanca award nyo. I have been a big fan for several years, and I can say this
is long overdue.

Thank you po, doc, for inspiring me even more, both in not giving up the
dream to win a Palanca and in pursuing my career in the medical eld. Nurse
po ako by profession and you have no idea how much your essays about your
patients and your practice mean to me.

Thank you, for that needed boost of morale and for showing that failure is
truly not the end.

I hope to meet you one day, in a hospital setting or otherwise. Haha.

Congrats, po, doc.

Reply

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READ MORE

S
SA AMING MESA
12 May 2003

I IN TRANSIT
13 January 2014

M M.D.
23 June 2003

I
I AM TWENTY-THREE
14 August 2011

SA CHOWKING
9 May 2005

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S
B
What a Palanca Means to This Doctor – Ronibats.PH

BEING THE HAPPY RESIDENT

30 August 2012

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