Calbayog City Embarrassment

Hoah!... I thought there will be no STEP (Student Technologists and Entrepreneurs of the Philippines) competition for this school year 2011 – 2012. As it was stated in the deped memorandum XX that the STEP skills competition is only up to the regional level only. We usually prepare for this competition in the ICT Category. Since there was no competition conducted in our division for the month of October and November, I thought there will be no competitions at all since it is the last year of STEP – the 10 Years on Existence in Department of Education.

In our 10 years of joining this competition, at least we had received several awards in the national level. To mention, my students achieved the following:

· 5^th Placer,Spreadsheet - 2^nd STEP National Competitions at Iloilo City.

· Finalist, Web Based Presentation – 4^th STEP National Competition at General Santos City.

· 2^nd Placer, Spreadhseet – 5^th STEP National Competition at Baguio City.

· Finalist, Homepage Development – 5^th STEP National Competition at Baguio City.

· Finalist, Miss STEP – 5^th STEP National Competition at Baguio City.

· Finalist, Spreadsheet – 6^th STEP National Competition at Davao City.

· Finalist, Web Based Presentation - 6^th STEP National Competition at Davao City.

· Finalist, Electronic Project Proposal - 6^th STEP National Competition at Davao City.

· Finalist, Miss STEP - 6^th STEP National Competition at Davao City.

· 1^st Placer, Electronic Poster Making - 7^th STEP National Competition at Baguio City.

· Finalist, Spreadsheet - 7^th STEP National Competition at Baguio City.

· Finalist, Miss STEP - 7^th STEP National Competition at Baguio City.

· 5^th Placer, Electronic Poster Making - 8^th STEP National Competition at Camarines Sur, Naga City.

Why do I need to state all of these? It is because I want to convey that with the trainings I’ve done for my students, it would not make them easily lose the competition. Part of the training is the principle in joining the competition, that they will compete to compete and not just to participate.

Sounds arrogant but it is not what I want to express. Because there are times, when we were defeated we easily accepted it because there are people bests than us. And not because of some fishy things done just to win.

Probably, I became threat to some of the coaches in our division and in our region. I’ve noticed that, when we represented our region in the national STEP competition, when we did not won and check our ranking, we are not that far from the top… but when they do the representation, expect that they are always on the last.

I know that they want to experience to be in the national competition and for me that is an excellent goal of a teacher-coach. But to be there? Are lot of preparations… I don’t prepare my students to compete in a lower level, my focus is always the final round “the championship level.”

Hence, I am very disappointed and embarrassed to the recently conducted Regional STEP competitions in our region. The unprofessional attitude from one of the contest administrators in the venue for this event at Calbayog City. I’m very sad that he is already a School Principal but he didn’t know what’s the proper thing to do in choosing the best representative for the next level. He just have his revenge with me and so declared them as the champion in Spreadsheet by cheating. I had encountered him before in the regional STEP some place in our region (Eastern Samar). I can still remember him because of his unprofessional reactions when we checked the output of his contestant in Spreadsheet. He even quarrel with one of the principals in our division.

There is no assigned contest administrator in spreadsheet that time. So, we, the coaches decided to make a problem and gave it to the contestants. While the contestants were answering the problems, we, the coaches made the correction key in checking their answers.

So I thought that there is no problem since there is a good relation among the coaches.

Here we come now… during the checking, while checking the output of his student-contestant, his response for every mistakes was the worst thing I’ve ever seen… he thought that I cheated him that’s why we won… but we made the problems and immediately gave it to the student-contestants without the correction key, because we made it while the contest was on-going.

Why am I embarrassed? Because during the solidarity meeting at the school-venue, Calbayog City. He always mentioned what happened last time which I felt surprised that after several years he still think of it… ha ha ha… he never grow professional… living with embarrassment… which resulted to humiliation of other people….

Other Coaches, were so mad with them… on how they manage and monopolize the contest… hiring special set of judges is useless… because the problem had given already to their contestant… and surprising… ha ha ha they won… but if you will ask their contestants … he can never explain what he’ve done…

So, it’s not my attitude to protest! I always respect the decision of the judges… if they thought they are the best… then let it be…

I’ll just express myself here… and I hope for those who experienced the same thing, congratulations to us… at least we are not cheaters…