By Sansen Lee Vendiola
BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA — Lina Sagaral Reyes. That’s the name that caught my curiosity, writer of feature stories that I loved reading in The Weekly Silimanian when I was a freshman transferee in 1980 at Silliman University.
Lina was one of the editors of the student newspaper. Her stories were my favorite weekly items of the campus paper.
One day, I was listening to a broadcast commentary by the veteran broadcaster Glynda Descuatan on DYSR. She had just judged an open essay writing contest among Dumagueteños. According to Glynda, the top two writers showed “depth beyond their age” and writing talent “far superior than all other essay writing contestants, including professionals and mature adults”.
The top two winners were Agnes Shari Tan, and Lina Sagaral Reyes, college students at Silliman.
And so my curiosity about and admiration for this Lina Sagaral Reyes were heightened. I had not met her yet that time, but it seemed like I already knew her. She became my idol. That was the start of my deep admiration for the talent and skills of Lina Sagaral Reyes.
By my sophomore year, I finally got to meet Lina. She recruited me to start an Oppostition student party. She was running for the presidency of the SU Student Government under the hastily-formed Cause Party. Lina Sagaral Reyes won the seat, and became the first woman president of the SUSG.
Lina has actually inspired other girls in campus to eventually become SUSG president during their time: Lakambini Sitoy, Lu-Anne Du, Myrish Cadapan, Glenna Rae Callao, Rowena Reformina, Wilma Famoso, Lycar Flores, Stacy Danica Alcantara, Melclaire Sy, Jenny Lind Elmaco, Rona Namocatcat, Marian Vanslembrouck, Johanna Lei Bandoy, Zapphyre Zamudio, Aprille Vince, Enrica Marian Dinopol, and currently, Sabrina Ledesma.
Almost a dozen other women student leaders were also emboldened to run for the SUSG presidency. I think more women, than men, eventually became SUSG president after Lina Reyes blazed the way.
I considered Lina Sagaral Reyes as my personal mentor. She was tiny but formidable. In student politics, she pushed me, and trained me till I got to the top.
Also, her soft-spoken, calm demeanor during stressful political decision-making helped temper my often-bombastic and confrontational type of leading and negotiating.
Lina ingrained in me that it is “better to be in the minority, or even alone to fight for what is right, and be in the right.”
In campus journalism, Lina Sagaral Reyes gave me a lot of tips and tutorials on how to top tWS editorial exams.
In many of the struggles I had in my student leadership, and editorship positions, she was always one of the first to help me out, even after she left Silliman.
As a struggling writer, I was inspired by Lina’s ability to weave melodic words and poetic phrases. I still remember her weird advice on how to start as a writer: I was to find a favorite author and his/her short work, and “plagiarize” it almost word for word, until I got the hang of how to write well.
Well, I have yet to write very well. But that weird advice — though seemingly unethical and unconventional — certainly got me into writing. Of course, I knew she wasn’t truly espousing plagiarism. I found her integrity irreproachable.
For example, Lina Sagaral Reyes failed to graduate with those nice Latin honors, although she totally deserved it. She also did not win the “Outstanding Student of the Year” award because she wouldn’t exchange her principles for at least a passing grade in Statistics so she could qualify for the prestigious extra-curricular award.
Lina then asked a Math wiz and kabsi Boholana to tutor her in Statistics. For her sanity, Lina enrolled in Statistics (or its equivalence) in Summer on a much later year. She did return to Silliman for that Statistics credit, and her Bachelor of Arts, and then her Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing. No Latin honors, but definitely with honor and dignity.
Lina Sagaral Reyes was diagnosed with cancer right after university — which started her manic-depressive reactions. But she tried to overcome her mental anguish and emotional turmoil by writing, writing, writing. She became a prolific poet to vent out her negative emotions, to fight for what is right, and for the rights of the marginalized.
Her doctor “gave her” six months to two years at most to live. The idea of dying so young soon helped her churn out a Palanca award-winning poetry, 1st Prize in 1987, for Instead of a Will These, for All the Loved Ones. That same year, Lina published a collection of her poems titled Honing Weapons.
Lina also wrote Istorya that won her another Palanca award in 1990. In 1993, she published another collection of her poems titled Storya.
When Lina visited Canada in 1998, she visited my family at home, and gifted us a signed copy of Honing Weapons. I must shamefully admit that I rarely read books and novels. If I did, I would read the first chapter, a middle chapter, and the last chapter. If the story or the writing style did not grab me, I would store it in paper boxes. (And that’s how I could brag that I have read so many novels and books and various forms of literature.) I normally didn’t read poems because I had become too lazy to analyze the meaning and the nuances.
But I truly read Lina Sagaral Reyes’ Honing Weapons cover to cover, including studying the cover design, the title, and other information on the covers. And from then on, I’ve slowly become a real reader of various forms of literature.
Yes, Lina fought back, proved her doctor wrong, and outlived her diagnosis for almost 20 more years, not two. She continued to work as a freelance journalist for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the Mindanao Gold Star Daily, and other Mindanao-based publications.
Lina Sagaral Reyes researched and wrote articles on the disadvantages of being female; the destruction of a town in her home-province of Bohol due to the mining of limestone; the exploitation of indigenous peoples in Mindanao, especially women and children; the farming and fishing practices of indigenous peoples; indigenous and local arts; the effects of climate change (way before “climate change” became part of people’s vocabulary); the effects of isolation and living alone, or being an unmarried woman; folk medicine; mental health.
She also got involved with community organizations, like the Cagayan de Oro Press Club Journalism Institute, and the local/regional/national media groups. In 1998, she received the Jaime V. Ongpin Award for Investigative Journalism, after writing an expose on sand dredging to accommodate an international resort. Such was an example of her well-researched, hard-hitting journalism.
In 2000, Lina received the National Science & Technology Journalism grand prize for an investigation on algal bloom in Macajalar Bay, located north of Misamis Oriental.
In 2020, Lina Sagaral Reyes won the Globe Media Excellence Awards for her investigative reporting on corporate pineapple farms, and their carbon footprint.
She was rushed to a hospital due to malnutrition, hypotension, and hyperglycemia. On Dec. 14, Lina Sagaral Reyes wrote 30.
In life and in death, Lina Sagaral Reyes remains an icon.
