Hello!
Mabuhay from the Philippines!
My name is Maro Enriquez, a 30-year-old freelance journalist and cat mom from Metro Manila.
I am both excited and anxious to begin this course, because I would like to believe that writing is one of my strong suits. I am most eager to learn the “trick” to adjusting one’s writing style to fit a certain medium, platform, or audience. I also look forward to learning new techniques in becoming a more engaging, flowing storyteller, and mastering grammar and punctuation.
I have been writing since I was a child. (I remember making these small, homemade, stapled-together-pieces-of-paper books for my parents and cousins, complete with drawings in full color.)
I also always knew that I would end up doing something that allows me to tell stories, whether these are about fairies and friendship magic — just some of the subjects in my books — or about community, rights, and feminism.
Things don’t always play out the way we envision them, though. My first job wasn’t in journalism or creative writing or literature; it was a 9-to-5 job in merchandising. If ever there is (or was) a god, they must have seen how miserable I was with my employment, because a few job switches later, I was hired to write (finally!) for a music channel in 2013.
And I’ve been in the media ever since. After a two-year stint writing for entertainment, I moved on to writing and producing news documentaries for one of the big Filipino TV networks. And after another two-year run, I decided to go freelance. Ta-daah!
And now, here I am, back in school again — this time, to learn all about becoming a good visual journalist.
I learned how to take photos because of our cats. (I wanted to immortalize them, you see.)
When I did learn how, I found myself at a fork in the road: To which will I devote myself? I felt like I had to choose. There were times in the past where writing was feeling more and more like a chore, and photography was just so fresh and interesting.
But was I really going to let go of something I have dreamed of since I was six?
It was a hard process, but now, I am content with growing more in both. And I always think, ‘Hey, won’t it be much cooler if I could do both?’
And it is.
Disclaimer: This essay was written as a requirement for the Diploma in Visual Journalism program of the Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University.
