Celeni Did Her Best

From London, our member Ed Maranan reports that "Celeni competed in the preliminaries this morning. She was in heat 1 which included speakers from the main English-speaking countries. She did very well, we thought. Ambassador and Mrs. Espiritu, Loline and I were present for the moral (or morale) support. The two speakers chosen from this heat were the New Zealander and the Australian. The first was a surprise winner, and we thought that Celeni did even better than him. In fact there were some observers--not from the Filipino group--who expressed their misgivings in public. Loline can tell you more about this. As they say in basketball, those are the breaks of the game. Celeni's was a tough heat, but she was very much up to it."

The eventual winner was Konstantin Lazutin of Russia, followed by Arty Papageorgiou of New Zealand. This year’s finalists came from Argentina, Australia, Chile, India, and Malaysia.

Thanks for giving it your best shot, Celeni--mabuhay ka! We'd also like to express our deepest thanks to our London "den mother," Loline Reed, who took good care of Celeni during her stay there, and, of course, to Shell's country chairman and ESU board member Ed Chua, who sponsored Celeni's ticket. The photo shows Celeni between Amb. Bautista and Ed Chua when she received her ticket to London. A million thanks to you all for another valiant effort.